Protocol analysis and Verbal Reports on Thinking

When Psychology emerged as a scientific discipline at of the end of the 19th century, the majority of psychologists were interested in consciousness. They sought to examine the structure and elements of their thoughts and subjective experiences through introspective analysis. Within a few decades, the introspective method was discredited, and introspective descriptions were rejected as a scientific evidence. Psychology turned away from studies of individuals’ descriptions of their thoughts and first-hand experiences and focused on observations of how other adults performed tasks in the laboratory. The rejection of introspection made the study of thinking come to a virtual halt until the 1950's, when the technical innovations such as the computer lead to the emergence of cognitive and information-processing theories of psychological phenomena. In the new research approach to the study of thought processes, subjects were asked to “think aloud,” leading to a new type verbal reports of thinking that differed from the earlier introspective methods and became the core method of protocol analysis.