Registered reports in neuropsychology: Insights from the burning houses study

We recently completed our first registered report project within a neuropsychological population (Moore et al., 2025). In this project, we set out to evaluate the replicability of the seminal case study by Marshall & Halligan (1988) on pre-attentive semantic processing in neglect, and replicated this effect under stringent experimental conditions. Our undertaking of this registered report study spanned over five years. In this viewpoint, we aim to share our personal reflections on this project in the hope that our experiences (and setbacks) can prove helpful for future studies aiming to conduct registered reports in neuropsychological populations. More broadly, our experience with this project provides a salient example of the challenges faced by registered report studies which may help account for the low uptake of this format in neuropsychology. Ultimately, we believe that encouraging adherence to fundamental open science practices including openly pre-registering plans and open reporting of data/code should be prioritised in neuropsychology and call for targeted discussions surrounding registered report formats specific to neuropsychological studies.