SELF-REPORTED EFFORT VERSUS ACTUAL PERFORMANCE IN INFORMATION-PROCESSING PARADIGMS

This study provided data supporting Ericsson and Simon's (1980) conclu sion that, within the framework of human information processing, verba l reports can provide a valid and informative source of data. One hund red nine volunteer participants were tested on a battery of microcompu terized tasks. After each task, participants were given a self-report questionnaire concerning perceived difficulty and effort expended. One hundred participants returned and were randomly assigned to either an incentive or a no-incentive condition for retest. As a group, partici pants in the incentive condition reported expending significantly more effort than did participants who received no incentive. There was a p arallel between verbal reports (metacognition) and actual performance on the more difficult task, whereas, for some participants, verbal rep ort data proved to be a more sensitive indicator than performance on l ess difficult tasks. In each case, verbal data either paralleled or au gmented the analysis of performance.