Individual differences in skill learning: An integration of psychometric and information processing perspectives.

User analysis is a crucial aspect of user-centered systems design, yet Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) has yet to formulate reliable and valid characterizations of users beyond gross distinctions based on task and experience. Individual differences research from mainstream psychology has identified a stable set of characteristics that would appear to offer potential application in the HCI arena. Furthermore, in its evolution over the last 100 years, research on individual differences has faced many of the problems of theoretical status and applicability that are common to HCI. In the present paper, the relationship between work in cognitive and differential psychology and current analyses of users in HCI is examined. It is concluded that HCI could gain significant predictive power if individual differences research was related to the analysis of users in contemporary systems design.

User analysis in HCI—the historical lessons from individual differences research

Individual differences in information processing: An investigation of intellectual abilities and task performance during practice ☆

Experimental evidence in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics is transforming the way political science scholars think about how humans make decisions in areas of high complexity, uncertainty, and risk. Nearly all those studies utilize convenience samples of university students, but in the real world political elites actually make most pivotal political decisions such as threatening war or changing the course of economic policy. Highly experienced elites are more likely to exhibit the attributes of rational decision-making; and over the last fifteen years a wealth of studies suggest that such elites are likely to be more skilled in strategic bargaining than samples with less germane experience. However, elites are also more likely to suffer overconfidence, which degrades decision-making skills. We illustrate implications for political science with a case study of crisis bargaining between the US and North Korea. Variations in the experience of US elite decision-makers between 2002 and 2006 plausibly explain the large shift in US crisis signaling better than other rival hypotheses such as “Iraq fatigue.” Beyond crisis bargaining other major political science theories might benefit from attention to the attributes of individual decision-makers.

The Cognitive Revolution and the Political Psychology of Elite Decision Making

Younger (24- to 39-year-old) and older (60- to 88-year-old) adults learned a list of vocabulary words; one half of the words were studied using a generally more powerful strategy (mnemonic keyword method), and one half mediated with a less powerful approach (generating semantic contexts). Before using these strategies as part of the experiment, neither younger nor older adults judged that the keyword method was more effective and neither group preferred one strategy over the other. After using the strategies and taking a test of strategically studied unfamiliar vocabulary words, the younger subjects reported accurately the relative effectiveness of the two strategies and selected the one that had worked better for them to apply to a subsequent list of vocabulary items. The older participants were not as aware of the differential potency of the strategies and did not rely as much as did the younger subjects on knowledge of strategy utility in making strategy choices. In short, metacognitive awareness of strategy effects produced by monitoring and use of metacognitive awareness in regulating strategy choice were more pronounced in the younger compared with the older sample in this study.

Cognitive monitoring and strategy choice in younger and older adults.

: This report discusses prediction of individual differences in task performance during and subsequent to task practice. Previous literature indicates that pre-practice prediction of post-practice performance declines rapidly as time-on-task increases (for both simple and relatively complex tasks). Based on these effects, traditional conceptions equating general intelligence with learning ability are inconsistent with performance data. The present approach views practice effects from an information processing perspective. The distinction between two major types of practice effects is outlined and discussed with respect to the automatic and controlled processing framework. The thrust of the discussion of individual differences and practice is predicted on a theoretical organization which draws together theories of the structure of cognitive/intellectual abilities with aspects of resource theory and elements of automatic and controlled processing. A unified theory of practice is presented. The theory relates ability and performance individual differences to task component consistency characteristics. The supporting data of an experimental study of individual differences in initial, intermediate, and final practiced performance stages are reported.

W Schneider

Papers

Individual Differences in Automatic and Controlled Information Processing.