ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on further refining recent advances in the Systems Factorial Technology (SFT) methodology and on the development of new tools for use with mental networks consisting of more than two processes. The SFT approach rests on rigorously tested mathematical tools for discerning serial from parallel processing, exhaustive from self-terminating processing, process dependence, and the capacity of the system under investigation. The chapter seeks to integrate these advances with the factorial tools developed to explore non-homogeneous mental networks, which may consist of both serial and parallel processes. With the rise of modern cognitive psychology in the 1960s, a new approach was developed; the 'additive factor method' explored the fundamental properties of mental processes such as serial and parallel processing order. In practice, the additive factor method employs an analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test for an interaction between factors. Serial and parallel processing is tested simply by observing the absence or presence of the interaction between experimental factors, respectively.
