Abstract This paper describes an experimental investigation of auditors' configural information processing while assessing control risk. Auditing knowledge about control risk assessment, both in general and specifically related to cash disbursements procedures, is described and used to identify configural information processing strategies which auditors are predicted to use. Guided by prior research related to policy-capturing and analysis of variance (ANOVA) judgment-models, specific ANOVA representations of the identified configural information processing strategies are described (i.e., interactions involving specific cash disbursement controls and having specified forms). In addition, the context- and task-related auditing knowledge, together with the identified configural information processing strategies, are used to guide development of the materials and procedures for a laboratory experiment designed to investigate whether auditors employ such information processing strategies when assessing cash disbursements control risk. Experimental results indicate that a substantial portion of the auditor-subjects' judgment models attributed significant judgment variance to the control interactions representing the identified configural information processing strategies. Additional analysis indicates that if these interaction terms were to be eliminated from the auditors' judgment-models, substantive judgment differences might occur. Overall, the experimental results suggest that auditors' configural information processing is more prevalent than previously has been recognized.
Brown et al. (Sat,) studied this question.