Cognitive science research is hard to conduct, because researchers must take phenomena from the world and turn them into laboratory tasks for which a reasonable level of experimental control can be achieved. Consequently, research necessarily makes tradeoffs between internal validity (experimental control) and external validity (the degree to which a task represents behaviour outside of the lab). Researchers are thus seeking the best possible trade-off between these constraints, which we refer to as the optimal level of fuzz. We present two principles for finding the optimal level of fuzz, in research, and then illustrate these principles using research from motivation, individual differences and cognitive neuroscience.

中文翻译：

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模糊的最佳水平：心理学研究方法中的案例研究


认知科学研究很难进行，因为研究人员必须将世界上的现象转化为实验室任务，才能实现合理的实验控制水平。因此，研究必然要在内部有效性（实验控制）和外部有效性（任务代表实验室外行为的程度）之间进行权衡。因此，研究人员正在寻求这些约束之间的最佳权衡，我们将其称为最佳模糊水平。我们提出了在研究中寻找最佳模糊水平的两个原则，然后使用动机、个体差异和认知神经科学的研究来说明这些原则。