The Articulated Thoughts in Simulated Situations Paradigm: A Think-Aloud Approach to Cognitive Assessment

Abstract

Gerald C. Davison i s Professor of Psychology at the University of Southern California. Sandra G. Navarre and Ralph S. Vogel are graduate students there in the clinical psychology program. Address correspondence to Gerald C. Davison, Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1061; e-mail: gdaviso@a almaak.usc.edu . psychologists have put to subjects and patients for many years and in many different contexts. The answers to such queries inform psychologists' speculations about the role of thought in emotion and behavior. I n general, cognitive scientists have developed performance measures to infer cognitive processes. Experimental situations are created to make inferences about underlying cognitive processes. In contrast, clinical psychologists have tended to rely on clients' introspective and retrospective self-reports in interviews or on questionnaires. The core assumption in cognitive-