Buddy Grah wrote:
> It always strikes me as odd since I am aware of little
> or no research in mainstream cognitive psychology that relies
> upon classic introspection.
"Classic" introspection, no, but if you look hard enough you will find some
examples of introspective methods. For example, there was a AERA
presentation by Richard Lehrer and a certain P.C. Smith back in 1986 on
children's planning when working alone or in "dyads" on simple programming
tasks - it included "think-aloud protocols" in which the students repeated
responded to the question "what are you thinking now?". Responses were coded
as "local planning" (immediate next steps) or "global planning" (goals with
subgoals).
The "think-aloud protocol" was (and I assume still is) fairly "mainstream",
at least in cognitive _educational_ psychology, but the interpretation of
the data is bounded by the evidence laid out in the classic article on this
issue:
Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). Telling more than we can know:
Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological Review, 84, 231-259.
(followed up by a book, I believe by Lawrence Erlbaum, titled "Verbal
Reports as Data", if I remember correctly).
The 1977 article would get my vote as one of the top "articles all
psychologists should read". (of course, now you'll ask me specific
questions, and I'll have to go dig it out to answer any of 'em - it's been
quite a while...).
Paul Smith
Alverno College
Milwaukee
