Blinding - What is this?
Blinding of investigator or analysis
A statement discussing the degree to which experimenters were unaware (or blinded) of group assignment and/or outcome assessment.
Blinding in preclinical studies short video (Anita Bandrowski); short video of blinding types in clinical trials (Terry Shaneyfelt); tips for surgical trials Karanicolas et al (2010)
Additional explanation for animal experiments from ARRIVE guidelines
What does SciScore do about blinding?
If we find a blinding statement, then SciScore expects to find the following items (randomization, power);
Example sentences
Responses were then scored by an experimenter blinded to injection condition and experimental cohort.
…sensitivity to different filament force stimuli was measured by two blinded
investigators.All analyses were performed blinded such that experimenters performing surgery, behavioral testing, anatomical measures, and data analysis were unaware of the genotypes and treatments.
…a veterinarian made the ultrasound examination of the right and left testes and calculated the testicular volume of all rats, blindly, without prior knowledge of the animal groups evaluated.