Prior to submission, please carefully read and follow the submission guidelines detailed below. Manuscripts that do not conform to the submission guidelines may be returned without review.
Technology, Mind, and Behavior uses a software system to screen submitted content for similarity with other published content. The system compares the initial version of each submitted manuscript against a database of 50+ million scholarly documents, as well as content appearing on the open web. This allows APA to check submissions for potential overlap with material previously published in scholarly journals (e.g., lifted or republished material).
To submit to the Editorial Office of Danielle S. McNamara, please submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal in Microsoft Word or Open Office format.
Please supply complete contact information, including email addresses, for use by the editorial office and later by the production office.
The majority of correspondence between the editorial office and authors is handled by email, so a valid email address is important to the timely flow of communication during the editorial process.
Calls for Papers
TMB welcomes manuscripts on the psychology and dynamics of the interaction between humans and technology.
Authors are invited to submit an article on topics including artificial intelligence, robotics, mobile devices, social media, virtual/augmented reality, natural language processing, gaming, geographic information systems, autonomous vehicles, nanotechnology, and biomedical technologies. For a list of the article types published in the journal, please see Types of Articles.
Sometimes, the editorial board of TMB will publish a call for papers for a special collection. When that is the case, details about that call will be linked here.
Peer Review Policy
Submissions are first evaluated by the editor. A submitted manuscript may be rejected without detailed comments after this initial review if the manuscript is considered inappropriate or of insufficient priority for publication in Technology, Mind, and Behavior.
After initial review by the editor, the manuscript may be assigned to an associate editor. It is either the editor or one of the associate editors who selects and sends the manuscript to at least two reviewers for critical evaluation. Technology, Mind, and Behavior uses an unmasked peer review system for all submissions. Identities of the authors are known to the assigned reviewers, while all reviewers remain unknown to the authors. Every manuscript is treated by the editors and reviewers as privileged information, and they are instructed to exclude themselves from review of any manuscript that might involve a conflict of interest of the appearance thereof.
Authors may suggest up to five scientists who are qualified to review their manuscript without bias or conflict of interest during the submission process. Comments from reviewers are examined by the editor or associate editor assigned, who then corresponds with the author and makes the final decision on acceptance or rejection of the manuscript. Editorial board members are permitted to submit manuscripts to the journal for evaluation.
Conference Proceedings
Technology, Mind, and Behavior does not currently publish conference proceedings. Technology, Mind, & Society conference proceedings are hosted on APA Open and are not published by the journal.
Special Collections
Special collections are curated sets of manuscripts that provide various discussions or empirical investigations to a specific facet or phenomenon related to technology, mind, and behavior, organized by emerging and leading scholars in those respective areas of interest. For special collections, authors may be invited to submit an abstract. In those cases, the abstract is reviewed by the special collection editor(s) and upon acceptance of the abstract, authors are asked to submit their manuscript. Acceptance of a special collection abstract does not guarantee acceptance of the manuscript. The manuscript is reviewed following the same processes as described under Peer Review Policy.
Types of Articles
Reviews and meta-analyses
Reviews are also limited to 10,000 words and can include state-of-the art review of empirical research (meta-analysis), reviews of ethical, legal, social, and policy issues, or reviews designed to help develop, use, and assess the impact of technology.
Multi-study reports
Multi-study reports involve quantitative and qualitative research with two or more studies using different samples. Multi-study papers are more integrative in nature and provide a strong theoretical and empirical contribution to the literature.
Manuscripts are limited to 10,000 words of text, including abstract, though shorter manuscripts are strongly encouraged. The word limit does not include reference pages, tables, and figures.
Manuscripts longer than 10,000 words need to be approved by the editor prior to submission and must make a truly outstanding contribution.
Single-study reports
Single study reports of quantitative and qualitative research are between 4,000 and 6,000 words of text (including abstract). The word limit does not include reference pages, tables, and figures.
Theoretical, conceptual, and integrative review manuscripts also must adhere to this word limit.
Brief reports
Brief reports are between 2,000 and 4,000 words of text (including abstract). The word limit does not include reference pages, tables, and figures.
Submissions involving pilot data findings, replication of published study findings, psychometric investigations of culture-specific measures, or substantial cultural adaptation of existing measures are most suitable for brief reports.
Mere translation and validation of existing psychological measures that are not culture-specific are not appropriate for the journal.
Replication and registered reports
In addition to full-length research papers reporting novel findings, the journal publishes registered reports, negative findings, replications, commentaries and reviews. Preregistration of replication studies is strongly recommended, but not required.
Major criteria for publication of replication papers include:
theoretical significance of the finding being replicated
statistical power of the study that is carried out
the number and power of previous replications of the same finding
Other factors that would weigh in favor of a replication submission include pre-registration of hypotheses, design, and analysis and submissions by researchers other than the authors of the original findings.
Please note in the Manuscript Submission Portal that the submission is a replication article.
Papers that make a substantial novel conceptual contribution and also incorporate replications of previous findings continue to be welcome as regular submissions.
Technology, Mind, and Behavior will also consider registered reports. Authors should contact the editor with a proposal before submitting a registered report. The proposed research will be reviewed for significance and methodological approach and, if approved, should then be carried out in accordance with the proposed plan.
To the extent that the study is judged to have been competently performed, the paper will be accepted (pending any necessary revisions) regardless of the outcome of the study.
Open Science and Transparency
Once a paper is published, APA requires authors to share their data with qualified researchers for the purpose of verifying published findings through reanalysis using identical or alternate statistical methods.
To facilitate transparent and open research practices, the policy of Technology, Mind, and Behavior is to publish papers where authors indicate whether the data, methods used in the analysis, and materials used to conduct the research will be made available to any researcher for purposes of reproducing the results or replicating the procedure.
Authors must include a data availability statement in the author note and at the end of the method section indicating whether they will or will not make their data, analytic methods, and study materials available to other researchers.
If an author agrees to make materials available, the author must specify where that material will be available. Authors who make their data available will be awarded an open science badge. See more about open science badges.
Authors who do not make data, methods, and materials publicly available should note their reasons and are expected to abide by APA's data preservation policies, specified under "Ethical Principles."
Authors must disclose any prior uses of data reported in the manuscript in the author note and in the cover letter, which should include a complete reference list of these articles as well as a description of the extent and nature of any overlap between the present submission and the previous work.
Authors must disclose all sources of financial support for the conduct of the research (e.g., “This research was supported by NIDA grant X”). If the funding source was involved in any other aspects of the research (e.g., study design, analysis, interpretation, writing), then clearly state the role. If the funding source had no other involvement other than financial support, then simply state that the funding source had no other role other than financial support.
Also provide a conflict-of-interest statement disclosing any real or potential conflict(s) of interest, including financial, personal, or other relationships with other organizations or companies that may inappropriately impact or influence the research and interpretation of the findings.
If there are no conflicts of interest, this should be clearly stated.
If the manuscript has been posted to a preprint archive, include a link to the preprint.
Updated in 2018, the standards offer ways to improve transparency in reporting to ensure that readers have the information necessary to evaluate the quality of the research and to facilitate collaboration and replication.
The JARS guidelines:
Recommend the division of hypotheses, analyses, and conclusions into primary, secondary, and exploratory groupings to allow for a full understanding of quantitative analyses presented in a manuscript and to enhance reproducibility
Offer modules for authors reporting on N-of-1 designs, replications, clinical trials, longitudinal studies, and observational studies, as well as the analytic methods of structural equation modeling and Bayesian analysis
Include guidelines on reporting on registration (including making protocols public); participant characteristics, including demographic characteristics; inclusion and exclusion criteria; psychometric characteristics of outcome measures and other variables; and planned data diagnostics and analytic strategy
Participants: Description, Sample Justification, and Informed Consent
The Method section of each empirical report must contain a detailed description of the study participants, including, but not limited to:
age
gender
ethnicity
SES
clinical diagnoses and comorbidities (as appropriate)
any other relevant demographics (e.g., sexual orientation)
In the Discussion section of the manuscript, authors should discuss the diversity of their study samples and the generalizability of their findings (see also the constraints on generality section below).
Authors are also encouraged to justify their sample demographics in the Discussion section. If Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) or all-White samples are used, authors should justify their samples and describe their sample inclusion efforts (see Roberts, et al., 2020 for more information on justifying sample demographics).
The Method section also must include a statement describing how informed consent was obtained from the participants (or their parents/guardians) and indicate that the study was conducted in compliance with an appropriate Internal Review Board.
Constraints on Generality
It is recommended that in a subsection of the discussion titled "Constraints on generality," authors should include a detailed discussion of the limits on generality (see Simons, Shoda, & Lindsay, 2017). In this section, authors should detail grounds for concluding why the results are may or may not be specific to the characteristics of the participants. They should address limits on generality not only for participants but for materials, procedures, and context. Authors should also specify which methods they think could be varied without affecting the result and which should remain constant.
Data Citation
All data, program code and other methods should be appropriately cited. Such materials should be recognized as original intellectual contributions and afforded recognition through citation.
All data sets and program code used in a publication should be cited in the text and listed in the reference section.
References for data sets and program code should include a persistent identifier, such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI).
Data set citation example
Alegria, M., Jackson, J. S., Kessler, R. C., & Takeuchi, D. (2016). Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), 2001–2003 [Data set]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20240.v8
Open Science Badges
Articles are eligible for open science badges recognizing publicly available data, materials, and/or preregistration plans and analyses. These badges are awarded on a self-disclosure basis.
At submission, authors must confirm that criteria have been fulfilled in a signed badge disclosure form (PDF, 33KB) that must be submitted as supplemental material. If all criteria are met as confirmed by the editor, the form will then be published with the article as supplemental material.
Authors should also note their eligibility for the badge(s) in the cover letter.
For all badges, items must be made available on an open-access repository with a persistent identifier in a format that is time-stamped, immutable, and permanent. For the preregistered badge, this is an institutional registration system.
Data and materials must be made available under an open license allowing others to copy, share, and use the data, with attribution and copyright as applicable.
Available Badges
Open Data: All data necessary to reproduce the reported results that are digitally shareable are made publicly available. Information necessary for replication (e.g., codebooks or metadata) must be included.
Open Data: Protected Access: A "PA" (Protected Access) notation may be added to open data badges if sensitive, personal data are available only from an approved third-party repository that manages access to data to qualified researchers through a documented process. To be eligible for an open data badge with such a notation, the repository must publicly describe the steps necessary to obtain the data and detailed data documentation (e.g. variable names and allowed values) must be made available publicly. The list of approved protected access repositories is continually updated.
Open Materials: All materials necessary to reproduce the reported results that are digitally shareable, along with descriptions of non-digital materials necessary for replication, are made publicly available.
Preregistered: At least one study's design has been preregistered with descriptions of (a) the research design and study materials, including the planned sample size; (b) the motivating research question or hypothesis; (c) the outcome variable(s); and (d) the predictor variables, including controls, covariates, and independent variables. Results must be fully disclosed. As long as they are distinguished from other results in the article, results from analyses that were not preregistered may be reported in the article.
Preregistered+Analysis Plan: At least one study's design has been preregistered along with an analysis plan for the research — and results are recorded according to that plan.
Note that it may not be possible to preregister a study or to share data and materials. Applying for open science badges is optional.
Double-space all copy. Other formatting instructions, as well as instructions on preparing tables, figures, references, metrics, and abstracts, appear in the Manual. Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style website.
Title Page
The title page should contain the complete title of the manuscript, names and affiliations of all authors, institution(s) at which the work was performed, and name, address, telephone and fax numbers of the author responsible for correspondence.
Please include the word count of the text and abstract.
Authors should also provide a short title of not more than 45 characters (including spaces) and up to 5 keywords that will highlight the subject matter of the article.
Abstract and Keywords
All manuscripts must include an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words typed on a separate page. A good abstract describes study aims or hypotheses; methods, including details on sample size, participant characteristics, and research design; results; and conclusions, including the implications of the findings.
After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases.
To maximize your article's discoverability, use some generic and some specific keywords; include some of these keywords in the title of the article and in the first two sentences of the abstract; avoid using a long article title.
Interactive Figures
Technology, Mind, and Behavior is part of APA Open, an experiment you can be part of. Authors are asked to think about how they can present their research findings more dynamically so that readers are immersed in the project in ways they can’t be in a standard PDF experience. For more information and examples, see our Interactive Figures page.
Tables
Use Word's Insert Table function when you create tables. Using spaces or tabs in your table will create problems when the table is typeset and may result in errors.
Figures
Graphics files are welcome if supplied as Tiff or EPS files. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file.
LaTex Files
LaTex files (.tex) should be uploaded with all other files such as BibTeX Generated Bibliography File (.bbl) or Bibliography Document (.bib) together in a compressed ZIP file folder for the manuscript submission process.
In addition, a Portable Document Format (.pdf) of the manuscript file must be uploaded for the peer review process.
Videos
Please post your MOV or MP4 video files to YouTube, CodePen, SoundCloud, or Vimeo and make sure to include working links in the article.
Display Equations
We strongly encourage you to use MathType (third-party software) or Equation Editor 3.0 (built into pre-2007 versions of Word) to construct your equations, rather than the equation support that is built into Word 2007 and Word 2010. Equations composed with the built-in Word 2007/Word 2010 equation support are converted to low-resolution graphics when they enter the production process and must be rekeyed by the typesetter, which may introduce errors.
To construct your equations with MathType or Equation Editor 3.0:
Go to the Text section of the Insert tab and select Object
Select MathType or Equation Editor 3.0 in the drop-down menu
If you have an equation that has already been produced using Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010 and you have access to the full version of MathType 6.5 or later, you can convert this equation to MathType by clicking on MathType Insert Equation. Copy the equation from Microsoft Word and paste it into the MathType box. Verify that your equation is correct, click File, and then click Update. Your equation has now been inserted into your Word file as a MathType Equation.
Use Equation Editor 3.0 or MathType only for equations or for formulas that cannot be produced as Word text using the Times or Symbol font.
Computer Code
Because altering computer code in any way (e.g., indents, line spacing, line breaks, page breaks) during the typesetting process could alter its meaning, we treat computer code differently from the rest of your article in our production process. To that end, we request separate files for computer code.
If you would like to include code in the text of your published manuscript, please submit a separate file with your code exactly as you want it to appear, using Courier New font with a type size of 8 points. We will make an image of each segment of code in your article that exceeds 40 characters in length. (Shorter snippets of code that appear in text will be typeset in Courier New and run in with the rest of the text.)
If an appendix contains a mix of code and explanatory text, please submit a file that contains the entire appendix, with the code keyed in 8-point Courier New.
Permissions
Authors of accepted papers must obtain and provide to the editor on final acceptance all necessary permissions to reproduce in print and electronic form any copyrighted work, including test materials (or portions thereof), photographs, and other graphic images (including those used as stimuli in experiments).
On advice of counsel, APA may decline to publish any image or video whose copyright status is unknown.
Academic Writing and English Language Editing Services
Authors who feel that their manuscript may benefit from additional academic writing or language editing support prior to submission are encouraged to seek out such services at their host institutions, engage with colleagues and subject matter experts, and/or consider several vendors that offer discounts to APA authors.
Please note that APA does not endorse or take responsibility for the service providers listed. It is strictly a referral service.
Use of such service is not mandatory for publication in an APA journal. Use of one or more of these services does not guarantee selection for peer review, manuscript acceptance, or preference for publication in any APA journal.
Publication Policies
APA policy prohibits an author from submitting the same manuscript for concurrent consideration by two or more publications.
Articles are published under a CC-BY-NC-ND (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivatives) license, allowing others to download and share them for noncommercial use as long as you are credited as the author. Ownership of copyright in the article remains with the author(s).
To protect the integrity of your work, this license does not allow for modifications to be shared; sharing only the article as published is permitted. If your article is not yet published, you may distribute the prepublication version on the internet or post it on a website but should label the paper with the date and with a statement that the paper has not (yet) been published and is not therefore the authoritative document of record. Example: "Draft version 2.2 2/2/2020. This paper has not been peer reviewed yet.”
Ethical Principles
It is a violation of APA Ethical Principles to publish "as original data, data that have been previously published" (Standard 8.13).
In addition, APA Ethical Principles specify that "after research results are published, psychologists do not withhold the data on which their conclusions are based from other competent professionals who seek to verify the substantive claims through reanalysis and who intend to use such data only for that purpose, provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and unless legal rights concerning proprietary data preclude their release" (Standard 8.14).
APA expects authors to adhere to these standards. Specifically, APA expects authors to have their data available throughout the editorial review process and for at least 5 years after the date of publication.
Authors are required to state in writing that they have complied with APA ethical standards in the treatment of their sample, human or animal, or to describe the details of treatment.
The APA Ethics Office provides the full Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct electronically on its website in HTML, PDF, and Word format. You may also request a copy by emailing or calling the APA Ethics Office (202-336-5930). You may also read "Ethical Principles," December 1992, American Psychologist, Vol. 47, pp. 1597–1611.
Conflicts of Interest
APA requires authors to reveal any possible conflict of interest in the conduct and reporting of research (e.g., financial interests in a test or procedure, funding by pharmaceutical companies for drug research).
In light of changing patterns of scientific knowledge dissemination, APA requires authors to provide information on prior dissemination of the data and narrative interpretations of the data/research appearing in the manuscript (e.g., if some or all were presented at a conference or meeting, posted on a listserv, shared on a website, including academic social networks like ResearchGate, etc.).
This information (2–4 sentences) must be provided as part of the Author Note.
Other Information
Visit the Journals Publishing Resource Center for more resources for writing, reviewing, and editing articles for publishing in APA journals.
