I wouldn't call it "failing miserably." Although it doesn't appear to have been the main focus of the study, the antepenultimate paragraph of the results sectio

I wouldn't call it "failing miserably." Although it doesn't appear to have been the main focus of the study, the antepenultimate paragraph of the results section does say most violinists couldn't identify whether their violin was new or old (3 got it right, 7 got it wrong, 7 said they didn't know) [0]. There aren't p-values provided for that result, though. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/3/760.full http://www.pnas.org/content/109/3/760.full edit: Also, you criticize the publications for not reading the abstract, but I wonder if you read it closely. It says "most players seemed unable to tell whether their most-preferred instrument was new or old," which seems right in line with those headlines to me.