How double blind is double blind? And does it matter?

Double-blind peer review.

Since Nature Nanotechnology launched in October 2006, our approach to peer review has been the same. We, like most science journals, use ‘single-blind’ peer review: that is, the referees of a paper know who the authors are but the authors don’t know who the referees are. We are now making a change to this process and will offer ‘doubleblind’ peer review — in which referees review a paper withou...

Estimation of internal noise using double passes: Does it matter how the second pass is delivered?

Human sensory processing is inherently noisy: if a participant is presented with the same set of stimuli multiple times and is asked to perform a task related to some property of the stimulus by pressing one of two buttons, the set of responses generated by the participant will differ on different presentations even though the set of stimuli remained the same. This response variability can be u...

Double Blind Experiment

randomised controlled double blind trial

To investigate the effects of supplemental oxygen on cardiac rhythm during gastroscopy, 103 patients aged over 60 were randomised to receive either supplemental oxygen or air at 2 litres/minute during the procedure. Pulse rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and a Holter cardiac trace were monitored before, during, and for one hour after the gastroscopy. A wide range of electrocardiographic...

Double-blind reviewing at EvoLang

The impact of introducing double-blind reviewing in the most recent Evolution of Language conference is assessed. The ranking of papers is compared between EvoLang 11 (double-blind review) and EvoLang 9 and 10 (single-blind review). Main effects were found for first author gender by conference. The results mirror some findings in the literature on the effects of double-blind review, suggesting ...