RemoteTesting

In the most general sense, remote testing is any data collection that take place outside of a laboratory setting. This could include field research or questionnaires filled out in the community setting, but our focus here is on experiments that involve presentation and response to auditory stimuli. This is not to be confused with research on parapsychology, which is sometimes described as remote perception testing.

There are many advantages to remote testing, notably access to subjects who cannot come to the lab. Testing subjects remotely can save time that would otherwise be spent travelling to the lab and extend the population available for study. Remote testing also typically involves some loss of control -- stimulus control, control over the test environment, reduced information above individual subjects, and reduced opportunities to monitor or reinstruct subjects.

In-lab testing administers response collection ("tasks") in controlled environments that minimize distractions, provide the necessary resources (hardware/software), and support the storage and analysis of response data. Remote testing, in contrast, has less control over the task environment, may utilize hardware/software resources that vary significantly across participants, and depend on new procedures for storing and transmitting response data from the participant to the experimenter.