Cognitive Task Analysis

CORE DEFINITION

A set of methods developed in applied cognitive psychology for eliciting the knowledge that underlies expert performance in complex tasks, including cue recognition, situation assessment, and decision points, rather than only the visible actions. The core proposition is that expertise resides largely in unverbalized procedural knowledge, so observation alone captures the sequence of actions while missing the reasoning that made them appropriate. The key qualification is elicitation technique: experts cannot simply be asked what they know, so structured probes such as think-aloud protocols and critical decision interviews are required.