{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_full320_20260801","cell_id":"deadweight_loss_reduction__cognitive_science","trajectory_id":"R","attempt_index":0,"archetype_slug":"deadweight_loss_reduction","domain_slug":"cognitive_science","decision":"CANDIDATE","problem_id":"coarse_participant_eligibility_blocks_low_risk_cognitive_research","causal_lever_id":"task_specific_risk_tiered_participant_eligibility","proposal":{"problem":"HYPOTHESIS: Blanket participant-exclusion rules in some minimal-risk cognitive studies—such as diagnosis-, medication-, disability-, or age-based exclusions—block willing, capable participants even when the particular task poses no added risk and accommodations could preserve valid consent and measurement. The independently recognizable problem is avoidable exclusion, idle study capacity, and biased coverage caused by eligibility rules broader than their safety or validity purpose.","actors_substrate":["prospective research participants","principal investigators and study staff","institutional review boards","communities represented or excluded by samples","users of cognitive-science findings"],"observable_state":"HYPOTHESIS: Protocol audits show otherwise willing candidates rejected solely by coarse category rules, while enrollment slots remain unfilled or samples omit relevant populations; the stated safety or validity concern is not assessed at task level.","consequence":"HYPOTHESIS: Potentially informative participation and scientific value are forgone, recruitment slows, and generalizability may decline without a corresponding protective gain.","affected_objective":"Increase safe, valid, and equitable realization of cognitive-research participation and evidence while preserving informed consent, participant welfare, privacy, and measurement integrity.","structural_mapping":[{"archetype_element":"value-blocking wedge","domain_realization":"Coarse category-based eligibility blocks candidates who may satisfy task-specific consent, safety, and performance requirements.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"},{"archetype_element":"blocked mutually beneficial activity","domain_realization":"Willing participation that could benefit research capacity, participant inclusion, and evidential coverage does not occur.","claim_kind":"INFERENCE"},{"archetype_element":"protected purpose","domain_realization":"Consent validity, participant safety, privacy, interpretable measurement, and scientifically justified population definition.","claim_kind":"CORPUS"},{"archetype_element":"idle capacity or mismatch","domain_realization":"Open study slots coexist with excluded willing candidates, or the enrolled sample is narrower than the target inference population.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"},{"archetype_element":"less-distortive redesign","domain_realization":"Replace blanket exclusions, where justified, with task-specific risk tiers, individual functional screening, accommodations, and explicit scientific exclusions.","claim_kind":"HYPOTHESIS"},{"archetype_element":"rebound and incidence","domain_realization":"Expanded eligibility may change applicant volume, staff burden, adverse-event exposure, data quality, and which groups receive access.","claim_kind":"INFERENCE"}],"component_map":[{"component":"Distortion Map","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Trace each exclusion to rejected candidates, unused slots, and lost population coverage."},{"component":"Protected Constraint Safeguard","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Retain consent, safety, privacy, and scientifically necessary exclusions."},{"component":"Surplus Estimate","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Estimate added valid completions, recruitment time saved, and coverage gained; avoid false monetization."},{"component":"Affected-Party Incidence Map","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Record effects on participants, staff, oversight bodies, excluded communities, and evidence users."},{"component":"Redesign Lever","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Use task-specific risk tiers, functional screening, accommodations, and documented exclusion rationales."},{"component":"Distributional Review","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Check whether access expands fairly or shifts burdens onto disabled or otherwise protected participants."},{"component":"Behavioral Response Model","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Anticipate applicant growth, strategic self-report, staff load, attrition, and accommodation demand."},{"component":"Implementation Boundary","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Limit the test to one approved minimal-risk protocol and specified exclusion categories."},{"component":"Monitoring and Rebound Check","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Track safety events, consent comprehension, completion, data validity, burden, and subgroup outcomes."},{"component":"Rollback or Adjustment Rule","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Restore the legacy rule or tighten a risk tier when preregistered safety or validity limits fail."},{"component":"Cost–Benefit Assessment Frame","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Compare scientific and inclusion gains with safety, quality, privacy, and administrative costs."},{"component":"Price-Wedge Diagnostic","status":"incompatible","domain_realization":"No monetary or administered-price wedge is posited."},{"component":"Friction Source Breakdown","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Separate eligibility rejection from recruitment scarcity, matching failure, and approval delay."},{"component":"Compensating Adjustment Plan","status":"adapted","domain_realization":"Provide accommodations, added monitoring, or an alternative cohort when a blanket exclusion is relaxed."},{"component":"Legitimacy and Authority Review","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Require investigator justification and institutional-review-board approval."},{"component":"Sensitivity Analysis","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Vary assumptions about eligible demand, validity margins, staff burden, and the value of broader coverage."},{"component":"Pilot or Sunset Path","status":"direct","domain_realization":"Run a time-limited protocol amendment that expires unless evidence supports renewal."}],"mechanism_dispositions":[{"slug":"congestion_or_capacity_pricing_adjustment","disposition":"incompatible","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"Charging for scarce research access would undermine equitable participation and does not repair eligibility.","counterfactual_removal":"No change; pricing is absent from the proposal."},{"slug":"cost_benefit_assessment_protocol","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"TEST_DESIGN","adaptation_or_rejection":"Use a multi-criteria welfare ledger rather than forcing safety, inclusion, and scientific validity into money.","counterfactual_removal":"The pilot could run, but its tradeoffs and sensitivity would be less reviewable."},{"slug":"distortion_reduction_review","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"CORE_CAUSAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Audit whether each exclusion changes behavior and distinguish avoidable breadth from genuine protection.","counterfactual_removal":"There would be no defensible basis for calling the eligibility rule an avoidable wedge."},{"slug":"impact_assessment_table","disposition":"selected_supporting","contribution_type":"OPERATIONAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Track subgroup access, burden, safety, and validity with honest uncertainty.","counterfactual_removal":"Aggregate enrollment gains could conceal concentrated harm or exclusion."},{"slug":"matching_improvement_program","disposition":"considered_rejected","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"Recruitment matching is the nearest rival, but it cannot admit candidates barred by the eligibility rule.","counterfactual_removal":"No change if eligibility, rather than discovery, is binding."},{"slug":"permit_or_approval_streamlining","disposition":"considered_rejected","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"IRB delay is not the posited wedge; substantive oversight remains intact.","counterfactual_removal":"No change because approval steps are not being streamlined."},{"slug":"price_control_redesign","disposition":"incompatible","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"There is no administered price or compensating price instrument.","counterfactual_removal":"No change."},{"slug":"quota_or_allocation_rule_review","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"CORE_CAUSAL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Adapt the review from quotas to categorical eligibility gates; separate legitimate study-population limits from stale allocation rules.","counterfactual_removal":"The proposal loses its specific rule-redesign lever."},{"slug":"regulatory_simplification_pilot","disposition":"selected_load_bearing","contribution_type":"SAFETY_GUARDRAIL","adaptation_or_rejection":"Adapt it to an IRB-approved, minimal-risk, time-limited eligibility amendment with live safeguards.","counterfactual_removal":"Testing broader eligibility would lack the bounded reversibility needed for ethical viability."},{"slug":"sunset_clause_review","disposition":"considered_rejected","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"The pilot already expires; attaching automatic lapse to all standing exclusions could remove protections without adequate evidence.","counterfactual_removal":"No material change because the pilot supplies the sunset function."},{"slug":"tariff_fee_or_toll_redesign","disposition":"incompatible","contribution_type":"NONE","adaptation_or_rejection":"No authority-imposed charge causes the hypothesized exclusion.","counterfactual_removal":"No change."}],"causal_chain":["Coarse eligibility categories proxy for task-specific safety or validity requirements.","Some candidates who could meet those requirements are rejected.","Task-specific screening and accommodations admit only candidates meeting preserved safeguards.","More willing candidates complete the minimal-risk protocol, reducing idle slots and broadening observed coverage.","Monitoring detects whether safety, consent, burden, or measurement validity deteriorates.","Threshold breaches trigger tightening or rollback."],"baseline":"Ordinary practice is to retain protocol-wide categorical exclusions, recruit only within them, and treat rejected candidates as ineligible without task-specific reassessment.","nearest_rival":"Improve recruitment outreach and matching among already-eligible candidates. It is preferable if the eligible pool exists but cannot be found; it cannot solve a binding eligibility gate.","authority_safety":{"affected_parties":["prospective participants, including excluded groups","enrolled participants","research staff","institutional review board","communities represented by the evidence","downstream evidence users"],"decision_authority":"The principal investigator may propose the amendment; the institutional review board or equivalent ethics authority must approve, constrain, renew, or stop it.","authorized_first_step":"Audit one minimal-risk protocol, then seek approval for a small, time-limited pilot replacing one coarse exclusion with task-specific functional screening and accommodations; preregister safety, consent, validity, burden, and access thresholds.","excluded_actions":["removing informed-consent requirements","enrolling anyone unable to provide the required consent","relaxing exclusions for high-risk or invasive procedures","weakening privacy protections","changing eligibility without ethics approval","generalizing pilot results beyond the tested task and population"],"halt_rollback":"Pause enrollment and restore the prior rule after any attributable serious unexpected harm, consent-comprehension failure, or preregistered excess in adverse events, invalid data, staff burden, or subgroup disparity; the ethics authority adjudicates restart."}},"negative_tests":{"strongest_counterevidence":"Many exclusions may encode real safety, consent, confounding, or construct-validity constraints; apparent idle slots may instead reflect insufficient willing participants, poor matching, compensation, or staffing.","analogy_break":"Research participants are not interchangeable capacity units, and scientific value is not ordinary surplus. Exclusion can define the estimand or prevent noncompensable harm, so efficient reallocation cannot override ethics or validity.","failure_condition":"The proposal fails if task-level assessment cannot reliably separate safe, valid candidates from those protected by the categorical rule, or if accommodations alter the measured construct beyond an accepted margin.","problem_falsifier":"An audit finds that exclusions are individually task-justified, almost no rejected candidates could qualify under functional screening, and enrollment or coverage is constrained primarily by recruitment supply, matching, staffing, or a deliberately narrow estimand.","intervention_falsifier":"In the bounded pilot, redesigned eligibility produces no meaningful gain in valid completions, recruitment time, or relevant population coverage, or it exceeds preregistered margins for harm, consent failure, invalid measurement, burden, or inequitable outcomes.","risks":["coercive or tokenistic inclusion","unexpected participant harm","invalid construct measurement after accommodation","privacy exposure from individualized screening","strategic misreporting","staff overload","false generalization from a selected minimal-risk pilot","using efficiency language to pressure ethics oversight"]},"null_rationale":null,"classification":{"candidate_kind":"DOMAIN_TRANSFER","prior_art_status":"UNSEARCHED","evidence_maturity":"HYPOTHESIS"},"revision_change_log":{"revision_kind":"ORIGINAL","prior_problem_id":null,"prior_causal_lever_id":null,"problem_changed":false,"causal_lever_changed":false,"conceptual_changes":[],"operational_changes":[],"repairs_addressed":[]},"confidence":0.74,"generator_notes":"Closed-book structural inference from the supplied packet. The candidate is conditional on eligibility, rather than recruitment or legitimate scientific scope, being the binding wedge; no prior-art or empirical validation is claimed."}