NUANCE 3.0: using genetic programming to model variable relationships

Previously, we introduced a new computational tool for nonlinear curve fitting and data set exploration: the Naturalistic University of Alberta Nonlinear Correlation Explorer (NUANCE) (Hollis & Westbury, 2006). We demonstrated that NUANCE was capable of providing useful descriptions of data for two toy problems. Since then, we have extended the functionality of NUANCE in a new release (NUANCE 3.0) and fruitfully applied the tool to real psychological problems. Here, we discuss the results of two studies carried out with the aid of NUANCE 3.0. We demonstrate that NUANCE can be a useful tool to aid research in psychology in at least two ways: It can be harnessed to simplify complex models of human behavior, and it is capable of highlighting useful knowledge that might be overlooked by more traditional analytical and factorial approaches. NUANCE 3.0 can be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society Archive of Norms, Stimuli, and Data at www.psychonomic.org/archive.