Managing the speed-accuracy trade-off

This chapter examines two aspects of task performance, speed and accuracy, and shows how they interact with each other. The best-known interaction is a speed/accuracy trade-off (SATO) - as speed increases accuracy decreases. But this is not the only interaction between these two performance measures, so managing their interaction needs more detailed knowledge. Speed and accuracy are first defined, and their modes of interaction shown as three levels. Finally, a practical way of managing this interaction is presented with a worked example.