Strategy use and feedback in inspection time

There is a consensus that psychometric intelligence correlates significantly with inspection time (IT), a putative measure of the efficiency of the early stages of visual information processing. Controversy exists as to whether IT is a cause or a consequence of IQ differences. It has been suggested that individuals with a high IQ form macrolevel strategies which undermine the microlevel processing assumptions of IT testing, and that feedback given in the early stages of IT testing facilitates strategy formation. One such strategy involves detecting apparent movement in IT stimulus-mask displays. We manipulated feedback during IT testing and found: (1) no evidence that feedback encouraged the formation of strategies; and (2) that feedback did not aid performance on IT. Strategy users did not have superior IT performance. The overall level of strategy reporting was low, presumably because an effective backward mask was employed. These results do not support a causal role for strategies in the correlation between IT and psychometric intelligence; however, they are congruent with the notion that strategy reporting in the IT task is a verbal epiphenomenon. With appropriate stimulus presentation devices and an effective backward mask many of the stimulus-mask artefact problems that lead to strategies in the IT task may be avoided. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.