Examples of Recent Applied Experimental Work 657design or concept development stages as well as during prod-
uct test and evaluation.
Many organizations in the computer and communications
industries, especially the software side of these industries,
have vested interests in research on HCI and in the evalua-
tion of product usability. IBM, Xerox, Microsoft, and Sun
Microsystems are notable among large companies that pro-
vide opportunities for research and development in this area.
However, while controlled experimentation has played,
and continues to play, an important role in providing results
that inform the design of user-friendly products, much of
the testing and evaluation that is done is limited by cost-
effectiveness concerns to heuristic analyses or other shortcut
methods based on the expert judgment of one or a few spe-
cialists (Nielson, 1994).
The National Research Council’s Committee on Human
Factors issued a report in 1992 that provides demographic
information, including employment information, on human
factors specialists, many of whom are applied experimental-
ists (VanCott & Huey, 1992). Other sources of information
regarding where applied experimental psychologists work
include P. J. Woods (1976), Super and Super (1988), and
Nickerson (1997).
EXAMPLES OF RECENT APPLIED
EXPERIMENTAL WORK
Applied experimental work is performed in essentially all
areas of psychology. Here our intent is to illustrate, by refer-
ence to specific studies, the range of subjects addressed. We
focus primarily on relatively recent work, but there is no
paucity of comparable examples from earlier times, a few of
which were mentioned in the section on the historical roots of
applied experimental psychology. It will be obvious from the
examples given that applications of experimental psychology
are not limited to the design of devices or systems that people
use or with which they interact. This is a major focus of
human-factors or engineering psychology, but experimental
psychology has many applications that do not fall in this
category.
Memory Enhancement
Interest in the development of devices and procedures for
enhancing memory (mnemonics) predates the emergence of
experimental psychology as a discipline by many centuries,
and the search for ways to improve memory continues to the
present day (McEvoy, 1992; Wenger, & Payne, 1995; see
also chapter by Roediger & Marsh in this volume). Recent
experimentation in this area is illustrated by the method
of expanding practice first investigated by Landauer
and Bjork (1978), and subsequently by Cull, Shaughnessy,
and Zechmeister (1996). The method involves increasing the
spacing between successive rehearsals of any given item in
the list to be recalled, and it has proved to be effective in
various contexts.
Another focus of research has been the keyword
mnemonicof associating visual images with words that are
to be learned. Since it was originally proposed by Atkinson
(1975), the method has been studied and applied in many
contexts, including the learning of foreign-language vocabu-
lary (Atkinson & Raugh, 1975), state capitals (Levin,
Shriberg, Miller, McCormick, & Levin, 1980), and science
vocabulary (King-Sears, Mercer, & Sindelar, 1992). Interest
in determining the strengths and limitations of the method
continues to motivate research (Thomas & Wang, 1996).
The ability to associate names with faces—to remem-
ber the names of people to whom one has recently been
introduced—is a sufficiently valuable social asset to have
motivated many efforts to find ways to improve it (e.g.,
McCarty, 1980; Morris & Fritz, 2000). Morris and Fritz
demonstrated that recall of the names of the members of a
group of modest size can be enhanced by a simple game that
applies the principle of expanding practice to the process of
making introductions. Other experimentally developed tech-
niques for enhancing memory for names, often involving the
use of imagery or word-image associations, have also proved
to be effective (Furst, 1944; Morris, Jones, & Hampson, 1978).
Researchers have shown great interest in the development
of ways and devices to aid people—especially elderly people,
but also people who maintain full and tight schedules—to
remember to carry through on plans and intentions (e.g., to
keep appointments, take medications, and perform time-
critical tasks; J. E. Harris, 1978; Herrmann, Brubaker, Yoder,
Sheets, & Tio, 1999; Kapur, 1995). The desirability of such
aids is evidenced by the ease with which many people forget
to keep appointments, take medications, and so on, without
them. Identification of the determinants of the effectiveness
of proposed approaches and devices intended to aid prospec-
tive memory has been the focus of some experimentation
(Herrmann, Sheets, Wells, & Yoder, 1997).Eyewitness and Earwitness TestimonyMuch experimentation has been done on eyewitness (Sobel &
Pridgen, 1981; Wells, 1993) and earwitness (Bull & Clifford,
1984; Read & Craik, 1995; Olsson, Juslin, & Winman, 1998)
testimony in recent years; these topics are of consider-
able practical interest because of their relevance to court