In multiattribute decision problems, the subject has to evaluate a number of alternatives with given values on a number of attributes, in order to arrive at some conclusion about the attractiveness or utility of these alternatives. The information processing procedure leading to a conclusion is called a decision strategy, and one of the main research topics in multiattribute decision research has been the extent to which these strategies follow compensatory principles. Judges are said to follow compensatory strategies when low values on some attributes are compensated for by high values on other attributes. In process tracing studies using the information board technique, descriptions of decision strategies are usually based on three indices of the information search process: variability ofsearch, search pattern (Payne, 1976),and depth of search. Variability of search, defined as the standard deviation of the proportion of information searched per alternative, is considered to give an indication of the degree of compensation of a decision strategy, compensation being smaller as variability increases. In this article, we propose an alternative way for establishing the degree of compensation of decision strategies in information board studies. Weargue that the degree of compensation depends on both variability of search and depth of search (the proportion of information searched), and that a valid compensation index has to be a multiplicative function of these two indices.In multiattribute decision problems, the subject has to evaluate a number of alternatives with given values on a number of attributes, in order to arrive at some conclusion about these alternatives, in terms of their utility, attractiveness, or suitability. The information processing procedure leading to a conclusion is called a decision strategy.One of the frequently used methods for empirically identifying decision strategies is based on choice tasks using an information board. This board contains the information about all alternatives on all attributes in matrix format. Initially, this information is not visible. The subject has to search for this information by turning over cards, each card containing the value of one alternative on one attribute, or by clicking the mouse of a PC on a cell of the matrix, thus revealing the information.One ofthe main issues in research on choice processes has been whether the decision strategy follows compensatory or noncompensatory principles (e.g., Westenberg and Koele, 1994 elimination by aspects strategies (for formulations and descriptions of these and other decision strategies, see Ford, Schmitt, Schechtman, Hults, & Doherty, 1989; Svenson, 1919).Because the degree of compensation appears to be such an important topic in this research area, the question arises how the degree of compensation of a decision strategy is actually being determined. It is the purpose of the present study to discuss the manner in which this issue is dealt with in the process tracing paradigm using the information board techniqu...