Network science in experimental psychology.

Abstract

This introduction to the special issue entitled "Network Science in Experimental Psychology" describes how complex networks are used by experimental psychologists to examine questions from a range of topics in psychology. Complex networks use nodes to represent individual entities and connections between nodes that are related in some way. The overall weblike structure that emerges influences the processes that operate in that system. The articles summarized here illustrate the various definitions of nodes (e.g., people, words, parts of the brain) and connections between nodes (e.g., friendships, semantic similarity, coactivation of brain regions) and also illustrate a wide range of metrics that reveal information that could not be found using contemporary and conventional approaches. The guest editors and authors hope that these examples encourage other researchers to apply the computational techniques from network science to their questions of interest to make new and interesting discoveries. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).