Just as important as a reasonable sample is good study design that mitigates the risks of bias.
To that end, eNeuro has a great new paper by Richard Born (Harvard) about how to diagnose and avoid confirmation bias (Born 2024). The full text is here: https://www.eneuro.org/content/11/10/ENEURO.0415-24.2024
This paper is part of a series on Improving Your Neuroscience that I (R.C-J.) am helping to organize (Calin-Jageman 2024). You can find a list of all papers as they appear in this series here: https://www.eneuro.org/collection/improving-your-neuroscience
I strongly recommend this lovely paper – it is full of fascinating examples and references; it is the type of paper you’ll want to assign to all your incoming trainees.
References
Born, Richard T. 2024. “Stop Fooling Yourself! (Diagnosing and Treating Confirmation Bias).” eNeuro 11 (10). https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0415-24.2024.
Calin-Jageman, Robert J. 2024. “New eNeuro Series: Improving Your Neuroscience.” eNeuro 11 (3). https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0048-24.2024.