OBJECTIVE: Considering a Complex Mental Process as the Sum of its Component Parts
The time it takes to do a Complex Process is the sum of the times of each component process. This is what you learned in high school as "The whole is equal to the sum of its parts." This principle is widely used in Experimental Psychology, whether we are talking about subtracting out reaction times (RTs) in order to determine the time necessary for color perception (in the experiment below) or determining which area of the brain is responsible for processing certain types of stimuli (Experiment 9, Dr. Raichle's Research).
This method has often been called Additive Factors Methodology. You can sum component processes in this manner only if they don't interact with each other. For a discussion of Additive Factors Methodology, see Psychmate, Student Guide (2003-2005), version 2.0, page 2-53.
Let's see how long Anna takes to sort the same deck of 52 cards into two separate piles based on color: Red and Black.
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