TASK COMPLEXITY AND CONTINGENT PROCESSING IN DECISION-MAKING - REPLICATION AND EXTENSION

The hypothesis that choice strategy is contingent upon task complexity was subjected to further testing using protocol analysis in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design laboratory study involving 40 subjects. As the number of alternatives increased, subjects switched from a one-stage, compensatory strategy to a multistage strategy involving first a noncompensatory screening stage followed by a compensatory evaluation of remaining alternatives. As the number of attributes per alternative increased, subjects differentially weighted the available information to simplify further the choice task. And as the complexity of the attributes increased, subjects tended to adopt a choice strategy with a screening strategy consisting of two separate stages. These findings were corroborated by separate analysis of quantitative measures of extent of processing and by separate analysis of latency measures. This study provides further support for the contingent processing hypothesis and for the attribute complexity hypothesis, and it increases our confidence in the use of protocol analysis as a viable process tracing technique. © 1979.