Relatore: Professor Bruno OSIMO - Bruno Osimo, traduzioni ...

during the performance. The problem-solving session can also be recorded on
video; this way, the experimenter can then review the video-tape together with
the subject, who can give his interpretation of what happened” (Someren,
Barnard and Sandberg 1994).
“The informant is therefore no longer the analyst, which makes the
analysis more objective and the findings open to falsification” (Jääskeläinen
1999: 66).
However, there seem to be some problems. In fact, a person could find it
difficult to remember exactly what he did, especially if some time has passed
after the task has been carried out. Sometimes even, one is not aware of what
he is doing. Furthermore, subjects may tend to report their thought process as
more coherent and intelligent than it originally was, giving the false
impression of perfectly rational behavior (Someren, Barnard and Sandberg
1994).
This kind of post hoc rationalizing can be intentional or unintentional.
In fact, humans tend to reconstruct events as more structured than they
originally were, because their memory is guided by their knowledge of the
result.
Some researchers have shown that the data obtained by retrospection are
not always valid (Nisbett and Wilson, 1979; Ericsson and Simon, 1993). They
examined closely the conditions under which reports are considered unreliable
and they discovered that
all discrepancies were found in situations in which there was either a
delay in time between the cognitive process and the report, or there was a
question by the experimenter that required an interpretation rather than
a direct report, (‘Why did you do X instead of Y?’), or both. (Someren,
Barnard and Sandberg 1994: 22)
When subjects are asked for memories, explanations or motivations, they
don’t answer from direct memory of the cognitive process but from an
interpretation of it that can be influenced by expectations.
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