The Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

Wendy A. Rogers, Editor

Although you may be familiar already with the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, I would like to remind you that this may be an appropriate outlet for your research. The mission of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied is to publish original empirical investigations in experimental psychology that bridge practically oriented problems and psychological theory. The journal also publishes research aimed at developing and testing of models of cognitive processing or behavior in applied situations, including laboratory and field settings. Occasionally, review articles are considered for publication if they contribute significantly to important topics within applied experimental psychology. Areas of interest include applications of perception, attention, memory, decision making, reasoning, information processing, problem solving, learning, and skill acquisition.

The general criteria that I use to determine the suitability of a research project for this journal are as follows:

1) Does the work advance theory?

2) Is an experimental approach used?

3) Do the results have clear practical implications?

With respect to question 1, the research should be presented in the context of extant theories and it should be clear what the implications are of your results for theory development and advancement. For question 2, I include quasi-experimental designs as well. Less frequent but still acceptable are papers that provide models, reviews, or meta-analyses of topics that are relevant to applied experimental psychology. For question 3, the research should have potential practical relevance; that is, it should be grounded in a problem space and the implications of the results for that domain should be clear. Please see my editorial for more details about journal policies (Rogers, 2008).

I would also like to draw your attention to our recent call for papers for a: Special Issue on Human Performance in Health Care. We invite submissions of manuscripts that address issues related to applied experimental psychology and human performance in all aspects of health care. Human error and safety in health care systems has been a focus of national concern since the 1999 Institute of Medicine report. Theories and methods related to human performance and cognition have played an increasingly important role in guiding research related to health care, error, and system safety. We invite manuscripts that describe empirical research that investigates any aspect of health care with implications for understanding and improving health care processes and practices. Topics of interest for the special issue are not constrained and may include the impact of information technology on practitioner workload, evaluation of the design of health care displays (e.g., patient monitoring), impact of operator factors (e.g., fatigue, situation awareness) or task-related factors (e.g., interruptions) on error or other aspects of performance, teamwork processes in critical care, or patient self-care. If you are interested in contributing to this special issue, please e-mail both guest editors, Dan Morrow (dgm@illinois.edu) and Frank Durso (frank.durso@gatech.edu), by May 15, 2010. Include a tentative title and brief summary of the planned manuscript. The letter of intent is optional. All manuscripts will be peer-reviewed and required to meet the standards of any Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied manuscript. The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2010. The special issue will be published in 2011.

We look forward to receiving your manuscripts for the special issue or on any other topic that you think is relevant (www.apa.org/journals/xap). Please do not hesitate to contact me (wendy@gatech.edu) or the Associate Editors Frank Durso (frank.durso@psych.gatech.edu) and Dan Morrow (dgm@uiuc.edu) if you have any questions about the journal in general or the suitability of a particular manuscript you are considering submitting.

Reference

Rogers, W. (2008). Editorial. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 14, 1-4.