In actual war, the target resists strategy and counters it, confounding plans, and redirecting strategy and policy to suit the unanticipated requirements for operational success.
Improvement in this study could have been due to maturation, educational interventions, placebo effect, or other confounds that were not addressed in the study design.
Furthermore, previous theories of stage have confounded the stimulus and response in assessing stage by simply scoring responses and ignoring the task or stimulus.
