ABSTRACT
How can we best represent individual differences in information processing? What should we use as dependent measures? Fig. 5.1 shows one way to think about the dependent measures we might use. Tasks used in psychological research may be located in that figure by their duration, from the simplest reactiontime task at the left, through tasks of intermediate duration and complexity, to complex tasks at the far right that may require minutes or hours to solve. Different dependent measures are most useful at different points along this continuum: eye fixations and latencies for simple tasks, latencies and errors for tasks of intermediate complexity, and think-aloud protocols and retrospective reports for complex tasks. It would seem, then, that one simply chooses the dependent measure that corresponds with the difficulty or duration of the task and gets on with the research at hand. We often look briefly at dependent measures to the left or to the right on the scale, but usually with the aim of dismissing their influence. I have come to believe that we cannot conduct our business in this way, especially when we hope to study individual differences. I am particularly concerned about the way we represent performance for those tasks that are anywhere along the continuum in Fig. 5.1 in which response latencies or response errors Continuum of task duration/complexity and dependent measures commonly used at each region along the continuum https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203762905/aa0e0a92-d987-4374-a8f4-ecb1e0cdd799/content/fig5_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
