Thinking and Deciding

METHODS FOR EMPIRICAL RESEARCH 35
on a television set, in color images and stereophonic sound. Until such a device is
invented, we must make do with less direct methods.
One method in this category involves the use of computers and other apparatus
to record everything that subjects look at, and for how long, while performing an
experiment (e.g., Payne, Bettman, and Johnson, 1988). This method has been used
for studying decisions about apartments. The subject is asked to read a table giving
data on various apartments. Each column represents an apartment and each row gives
figures on matters such as rent, size, and distance from work. If the subject scans
across the rent row first and then seeks no other information about the apartments
with the highest rent, we can infer that she has eliminated those apartments on the
basis of their high rent. To use this method effectively, the experimenter must be
clever in setting up the experiment, so that such inferences can be made.
Perhaps the simplest and most direct method for process tracing is to give a
subject a task that requires thinking and ask the subject to “think aloud,” either while
doing the task or as soon afterward as possible. What the subject says is then a
verbal think-aloud protocol, which a researcher can analyze in many ways. This
method has been in almost continuous use since the nineteenth century (Woodworth
and Schlosberg, 1954, ch. 26, give some examples).
To get a feeling for this method, try reading the following puzzle problem; then
stop reading, and think aloud to yourself as you try to work out the answer. Remember
that your task is to do the problem and to say out loud, at the same time, what is
going on in your mind, as it happens.
Problem: Examine the following three-by-three matrix. Notice that the lower
right-hand corner of the matrix is blank. What symbol belongs in that corner?
Here is an example of a verbal protocol in which someone is thinking about this
problem. (The different moves are numbered for later reference):
1. Let’s see. There’s an X, a tilted X, and a bunch of lines — diagonal lines along
the top and left side, and horizontal lines in the lower right.
2. It looks like there ought to be another horizontal line in the lower right.
3. That would make a nice pattern.
4. But how can I be sure it’s right?