Components of Fault-Finding: Symptom Interpretation

The processing demands of two strategies for symptom interpretation in a fault-finding task were considered. It was predicted that a more demanding, eliminative strategy would result in improved performance when supported by an external memory aid, and impaired performance when unsupported, as compared with a less demanding strategy involving tracing backward from bad system outputs. The nature of such demands, whether primarily verbal or visuospatial, was also examined. Results indicated that the eliminative strategy improved symptom interpretation accuracy slightly when supported by a visual memory aid and depressed performance when combined with a verbal memory aid. When no memory aid was permitted, subjects were apparently unable to use this strategy. No difference between visual and verbal memory aids was indicated with the less demanding strategy. These results are discussed with reference to their implications for the manner in which individuals utilize and represent problem information.