Systems Factorial Technology Explained to Humans

The study of mental processes is at the forefront of research in cognitive psychology. However, the ability to identify the architectures responsible for specific behaviors is often quite difficult. To alleviate this difficulty, recent progress in mathematical psychology has brought forth Systems Factorial Technology (SFT; Townsend and Nozawa, 1995). Encompassing a series of analyses, SFT can diagnose and discriminate between five types of information processing architectures that possibly underlie a mental process. Despite the fact that SFT has led to new discoveries in cognitive psychology, the methodology itself remains far from intuitive to newcomers. This article therefore seeks to provide readers with a simple tutorial and a rudimentary introduction to SFT. This tutorial aims to encourage newcomers to read more about SFT and also to add it to their repertoire of analyses.