Subjects in Human Factors: What are they Thinking?

Abstract

Failure to debrief test subjects (Ss) is dangerous, because Ss may be responding to the measurement situation in a highly idiosyncratic way which could produce corrupted results. Much of S's behavior, particularly in advanced problem-solving systems, is covert and so must be reported directly by S. Since verbalization during measurement is inadmissable, a method is proposed of debriefing S following the test.