This is the first book to appear on the topic of Ambulatory Assessment, a new approach to behavioral and psycho-physiological assessment. The ambulatory assessment approach is based on "naturalistic" observations and measurements made during everyday life, and has high ecological validity. This also means that ambulatory assessment techniques are ideally suited for practical application in a wide range of fields. Individual differences in behavior and physiology, as well as behavior disorders, can be investigated in real-life situations, where the relevant behavior can be studied much more effectively than in the artificial environment of the laboratory.In this book, an international group of researchers provide a comprehensive overview of ambulatory assessment. The most recently developed methodologies are examined. Their use is then illustrated with numerous examples of monitoring and assessment, both in the workplace and with patients, and including the pertinent hard-and software components.
The essential objectives of ambulatory assessment, which are covered in this volume include: Recording of relevant data in natural settings
-- Real-time measurement of behavioral and physiological changes
-- Interactive real-time assessment by automatically prompting the subject to respond to questions or instructions
-- Real-time assessment and feedback by reporting physiological changes to subjects
-- Concurrent assessment of psychological and physiological changes (events, episodes)
-- Correlation and contingency (symptom-context) analysis across systemic levels as suggested in triple-response models (multimodal assessment)
-- Ecological validity of results andsuitability for direct applications.
It will be of specific interest for those interested in psychology research and its practical applications (especially differential, clinical, and applied psychology), for psychophysiologists, for ergonomics/human factors specialists, and f
