1. Introspective research involves asking participants to report verbally on their cognitive and mental processes during tasks. 2. There are different types of introspective techniques including think-alouds, talk-alouds, and retrospective reports. 3. Introspective data must be compiled carefully through transcription, segmentation, coding, and analysis to identify patterns and strategies.

1. CHAPTER 3

2. 3.1
Introducing
Introspective Research

3. Ask!
How do you define/analyze
human emotional/mental
states?
Introspective techniques
sources of information
about other minds

4. Asking participants to delve into
their own states of consciousness
and verbally report on cognitive,
affective or social aspects of that
consciousness is the technique
used in the introspective studies.

5. 1. Set a task.
2. Ask participants to report on what
their brains/hearts are processing
as they carry out the task.
Example:
solving an arithmetic problem…you
mutter to yourself as you solve

6. Covers introspective studies in:
 Test-taking and  Problem-solving
validation  Erroranalysis
 Translation  Motivation
 Reading  etc

7.  20th
century
William James, Titchener, James
Joyce,
Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf
 Within a few years:
 Under attack by Watson
‘’…untrustworthy for scientific purposes…’’
 Behaviorism
 Abandoned for about 50 years

8. Ericsson and Simon’s Verbal
Protocols (1984,1993)
 psychologicalstudies needed to be
designed in respect to a model of
mental process
 formulated such a model based in the
basis of information processing theory
 Critical
feature: assumes a multiple
memory model comprising both short-
term and long-term memory stores
and presumed mechanisms by which
they are activated

9.  Timeintervening between mental operations and
report is critical and should be minimized as
much as possible
 Verbalizationplaces additional cognitive
demands on mental processing that requires care
in order to achieve insightful results
 Verbalreports of mental processes should avoid
the usual social conventions of talking to
someone

10.  There is a lot of information in introspective
reports aside from the words themselves.
parallel signals
 Verbal reports of automatic processes are not
possible. Such processes include visual and motor
processes and low-attention, automatized
linguistic processes such as the social chat of
native speakers
 Research should be based on a model of mental

11. Report and the task Information Example
1 Report is linguistically encoded, Talking aloud
Talk-alouds concurrent with can be directly stated while thinking on
the mental task how to spell a
word
2 Report is not already Describing what a
Think-alouds concurrent with linguistically encoded, corkscrew looks
mental task thus requires linguistic like
encoding
3 Retrospective Report is consists of selected Reporting a route
studies subsequent to foci, descriptions, you travelled
mental task explanations and
interpretations

12. Solo/ self-report type
o One is both a participant-subject and analyst
o Example: diary studies, Introspective record
language learning impressions
Recording
 audio/video –for later analysis
 Solo – record
 Big class: in pairs, students note down
what their partner say – language lab

13. 3.2
Experiencing
Introspective Research

14.  Principle 1- Always use a recording device.
 Principle 2 – Think aloud. Don’t talk.
 Principle3 – Do not be too directive in
instructions to participants.

15.  Sitin pairs
 Anagram - LIPYMS
 Participant talk aloud solving the anagram
 Researcher write down.
 Reverse roles

16.  Were there any problems in solving the anagram?
 Were the problems clear from the talk aloud
procedures?
 Did the two participants use different strategies?
 Would you use a new strategy if you were to do it
again?

18. 3.3
Compiling
Introspective Data

19. Mostly recorded + notes
Transcribe data from the
recording and integrate the
notes you have made
Segmenting
 each segment – a short thought
unit, which will be coded and
analyzed

21. ‘Solving Anagrams’ task types:
1. Task Type A : (NPEHPA = HAPPEN)
2. Task Type B : (ALPHABET = BET, BEAT,
TAB, PEAL, TABLE)
3. Task Type C :
(TEAR, SUN, TRUANT, RESTART =
RESTAURANT)
4. Task Type D :
(RATS + (?) (word meaning begin) = RATS
+ (T) (word meaning begin) = START)

22. 1. Responses are transcribed, segmented and
arrayed in the order produced.
2. Codes are devised.
3. Codes are assigned to response segments.
4. Codes sequences and combinations are
examined for patterns.
5. Coding combinations are compared.
6. Combinations of codes and coding classes
are examined to see if types of participant
strategies can be identified.

23. Coding scheme
(Ericsson and Simon,
1987)
Constraint Type (C-type) – Alternative Type (A-type) –
Responses are those in which the Responses are those in which the
participant uses her knowledge of participant pronounces a
possible letter sequences in sequence in an attempt to find a
English as a guide for constructing sound match in lexical memory.
longer sentences.
A-type responses often appear as
C-types responses often appear ‘sounding out’ of possible syllables
as ‘spelling out’ of possible letter or words.
sequences and letter positions.

24. 1. Free-form responses
2. Given orally by the participant
3. Elicit cognitive process
4. Carry out a specific task
5. Take place within particular dimensions and
limited duration
6. Produced during or shortly following out of
the task

25. 1. Solving logic problems
2. Solving a maze
3. Crossword puzzle working
4. Making word associations
5. Completing cloze-type passages
6. Ordering scrambled sentences/paragraph

26. 1. Review the objections to introspective
studies.
2. Check if the researcher has recognized the
potential problems of such studies.
3. See if the researcher has tried to minimize
the impact of these problems.

27. Suggestions:
1) Give lots of practice
2) Exercise care in choosing introspective tasks that
do not require participants to deal with
introspections of higher order, highly automized
linguistic processes.

28. Issue : RELIABILITY
1. Participants’ access to the mental processes that
he/she is trying to articulate.
2. Researcher’s instructions, examples or training is
bias.
3. Verbal reporting getting in the way of mental
processing and cause it to be something other
than what it would be if there was no
requirement to verbalise involved.

30.  Plato and Aristotle as early practitioners
 Reasoning, thought and truth
 William James (father of modern psychology
 Introspective observation is what we have to rely on
first and foremost and always. The word introspection
need hardly be defined – it means, of course, looking
into our own minds and reporting what we there
discover’ (Jamesb1890: 185)
 Played
a major role in psychology in the first
two decades of the twentieth century.

31.  Was short-lived, held to be of doubtful
validity and overtaken by behaviorism.
 ‘Verbal protocols are never mentioned as a
technique for data collection in books on
research methodology’ (Cavalcanti 1987)
 U-turn :- since that time, introspective
research blossomed (admittedly somewhat
biased)
 ‘verbal reports are now generally recognized as
major sources of data on participants’ cognitive
process in specific tasks (Ericsson and Simons
1993)

32.  Wide variety of different types.
 Any verbal protocol study can be marked as
being of one type or another within each
category.
Classification n of verbal protocol data types by
Fearch and Cassper. (pg 77)
 Variety of different uses.
Payoffs (pg76)

33.  Introspective study:- moved from
enthusiastic endorsement to abandonment to
enthusiastic resurrection. (rise/fall/rise)
 Remind us that:- choice of research
paradigms is a matter of fashion as much as
of objective analysis.
 It is on the rising tide of acceptance and
enthusiasm.
 Currents studies:- respond to some earlier
critism
 Validity and reliability

34.  Many caution have been issued and research
procedures have been prescribed –
minimizing slack.
 In sum – What for valid and reliable finding?
 Design studies based on mental process
 Incorporate proper warm-up activities
 Careful task instruction
 Appropriate monitoring of participants