Stretching Mental Processes: An Overview of and Guide for SFT Applications

Abstract

Systems Factorial Technology (SFT) is an advanced non-parametric suite of tools used to analyze the structure of mental processes in cognitive tasks. The major obstacle of adapting SFT to various cognitive tasks is the development of appropriate experimental manipulations to instantiate the double factorial manipulations. This chapter provides an overview of different SFT applications across various psychological modalities and cognitive tasks (e.g., visual detection, Stroop, classification, and short-term memory search). To facilitate the methodological growth of the SFT applications, a general approach for understanding methodological manipulations is proposed. The integrated view provides the guidelines of how to master the stretching of mental processes within one applicable factorial framework.