INTERVIEw with Albrecht schmidt
Chapter 4 Chapter 4
4.2 What Is Cognition?
4.2.1 Attention
Attention is central to everyday life. It enables us to cross the road without being hit by a car or bicycle, notice when someone is calling our name, and be able to text while at the same time watching TV. It involves selecting things on which to concentrate, at a point in time, from the range of possibilities available, allowing us to focus on information that is relevant to what we are doing. The extent to which this process is easy or difficult depends on (1) whether someone has clear goals and (2) whether the information they need is salient in the environment.
4.2.1.1 Clear Goals
If someone knows exactly what they want to find out, they try to match this with the infor- mation that is available. For example, when someone has just landed at an airport after a long flight, which did not have Wi-Fi onboard, and they want to find out who won the World Cup, they might scan the headlines on their smartphone or look at breaking news on a public TV display inside the airport. When someone is not sure exactly what they are looking for, they may browse through information, allowing it to guide their attention to interesting or salient items. For example, when going to a restaurant, someone may have the general goal of eating a meal but only a vague idea of what they want to eat. They peruse the menu to find things that whet their appetite, letting their attention be drawn to the imaginative descrip- tions of various dishes. After scanning through the possibilities and imagining what each dish might be like, as well as considering other factors, such as cost, who they are with, what are the specials, what the waiter recommends, and whether they want a two- or three-course meal, and so on), they then decide.
4.2.1.2 Information Presentation
The way information is displayed can also greatly influence how easy or difficult it is to comprehend appropriate pieces of information. Look at Figure 4.1, and try the activity (based on Tullis, 1997). Here, the information-searching tasks are precise, requiring spe- cific answers.
South Carolina
City Charleston Charleston Charleston Charleston Charleston Charleston Charleston
Best Western Days Inn Holiday Inn N Holiday Inn SW Howard Johnsons Ramada Inn Sheraton Inn
803803 803803 803803 803
$126$118
$136
$133$131
$133$134
$130$124
$146
$147$136
$140$142 747-0961
881-1000 744-1621 556-7100 524-4148 774-8281 744-2401 Columbia
Columbia Columbia Columbia Columbia Columbia Columbia Columbia
Best Western Carolina Inn Days Inn Holiday Inn NW Howard Johnsons Quality Inn Ramada Inn Vagabond Inn
803803 803803 803 803803 803
$129$142
$123$132
$125
$134$136
$127
$134$148
$127$139
$127
$141$144
$130 796-9400
799-8200 736-0000 794-9440 772-7200 772-0270 796-2700 796-6240
Phone Single Double l
e t o H /l e t o
M Area
code Rates
Pennsylvania
Bedford Motel/Hotel: Crinaline Courts (814) 623-9511 S: $118 D: $120 Bedford Motel/Hotel: Holiday Inn (814) 623-9006 S: $129 D: $136 Bedford Motel/Hotel: Midway (814) 623-8107 S: $121 D: $126 Bedford Motel/Hotel: Penn Manor (814) 623-8177 S: $119 D: $125 Bedford Motel/Hotel: Quality Inn (814) 623-5189 S: $123 D: $128 Bedford Motel/Hotel: Terrace (814) 623-5111 S: $122 D: $124 Bradley Motel/Hotel: De Soto (814) 362-3567 S: $120 D: $124 Bradley Motel/Hotel: Holiday House (814) 362-4511 S: $122 D: $125 Bradley Motel/Hotel: Holiday Inn (814) 362-4501 S: $132 D: $140 Breezewood Motel/Hotel: Best Western Plaza (814) 735-4352 S: $120 D: $127 Breezewood Motel/Hotel: Motel 70 (814) 735-4385 S: $116 D: $118
(a)
(b)
Figure 4.1 Two different ways of structuring the same information at the interface level. One makes it much easier to find information than the other.
Source: Used courtesy of Dr. Tom Tullis
4 . 2 W h A T I S C O G N I T I O N ? 105
4.2.1.3 Multitasking and Attention
As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, many people now multitask, frequently switching their attention among different tasks. For example, in a study of teenage multitask- ing, it was found that the majority of teenagers were found to multitask most or some of the time while listening to music, watching TV, using a computer, or reading (Rideout et al., 2010). It is probably even higher now, considering their use of smartphones while walking, talking, and studying. While attending a presentation at a conference, we witnessed some- one deftly switch between four ongoing instant message chats (one at the conference, one at school, one with friends, and one at her part-time job), read, answer, delete, and place all new messages in various folders of her two email accounts, and check and scan her Facebook and her Twitter feeds, all while appearing to listen to the talk, take some notes, conduct a search on the speaker’s background, and open up their publications. When she had a spare moment, she played the game Patience. It was exhausting just watching her for a few minutes. It was as if she were capable of living in multiple worlds simultaneously while not letting a moment go to waste. But how much did she really take in of the presentation?
Is it possible to perform multiple tasks without one or more of them being detrimentally affected? There has been much research on the effects of multitasking on memory and attention (Burgess, 2015). The general finding is that it depends on the nature of the tasks and how much attention each demands. For example, listening to gentle music while working can help people tune out background noise, such as traffic or other people talking, and help them concentrate on what they are doing. However, if the music is loud, like heavy metal, it can be distracting.
Individual differences have also been found. For example, the results of a series of experiments comparing heavy with light multitaskers showed that heavy media multitaskers (such as the person described above) were more prone to being distracted by the multiple streams of media they are viewing than those who infrequently multitask. The latter were found to be better at allocating their attention when faced with competing distractions
ACTIVITY 4.1
Look at the top screen of Figure 4.1 and (1) find the price for a double room at the Quality Inn in Columbia, South Carolina, and (2) find the phone number of the Days Inn in Charles- ton, South Carolina. Then look at the bottom screen in Figure 4.1 and (1) find the price of a double room at the Holiday Inn in Bradley, Pennsylvania, and (2) find the phone number of the Quality Inn in Bedford, Pennsylvania. Which took longer to do?
In an early study, Tullis found that the two screens produced quite different results: It took an average of 3.2 seconds to search the top screen, while it took an average of 5.5 sec- onds to find the same kind of information in the bottom screen. Why is this so, considering that both displays have the same density of information relative to the background?
Comment
The primary reason for the disparity is the way that the characters are grouped in the display.
In the top screen, they are grouped into vertical categories of information (that is, place, type of accommodation, phone number, and rates), and this screen has space in between the col- umns of information. In the bottom screen, the information is bunched together, making it much more difficult to search.
(Ophir et al., 2009). This suggests that people who are heavy multitaskers are likely to be those who are easily distracted and find it difficult to filter out irrelevant information. However, a more recent study by Danielle Lotteridge et al. (2015) found that it may be more complex.
They found that while heavy multitaskers are easily distracted, they can also put this to good use if the distracting sources are relevant to the task in hand. Lotteridge et al. conducted a study that involved writing an essay under two conditions—either with relevant or irrelevant information. They found that if the information sources are relevant, they don’t affect the essay writing. The condition where irrelevant information was provided was found to nega- tively impact task performance. In summary, they found that multitasking can be both good and bad—it depends on what you are distracted by and how relevant it is to the task at hand.
The reason why multitasking is thought to be detrimental for human performance is that it overloads people’s capacity to focus. Having switched attention from what someone is working on to another piece of information requires additional effort to get back into the other task and to remember where they were in the ongoing activity. Thus, the time to complete a task can be significantly increased. A study of completion rates of coursework found that students who were involved in instant messaging took up to 50 percent longer to read a passage from a textbook com- pared with those who did not instant message while reading (Bowman et al., 2010). Multitasking can also result in people losing their train of thought, making errors, and needing to start over.
Nevertheless, many people are expected to multitask in the workplace nowadays, such as in hospitals, as a result of the introduction of ever more technology (for example, multiple screens in an operating room). The technology is often introduced to provide new kinds of real-time and changing information. However, this usually requires the constant attention of clinicians to check whether any of the data is unusual or unexpected. Managing the ever- increasing information load requires professionals, like clinicians, to develop new attention and scanning strategies, looking out for anomalies in data visualizations and listening for audio alarms alerting them to potential dangers. Interaction designers have tried to make this easier by including the use of ambient displays that come on when something needs atten- tion—flashing arrows to direct attention to a particular type of data or history logs of recent actions that can be quickly examined to refresh one’s memory of what has just happened on a given screen. However, how well clinicians manage to switch and divide their attention among different tasks in tech-rich environments has barely been researched (Douglas et al., 2017).
Source: Chris Wildt / Cartoon Stock
4 . 2 W h A T I S C O G N I T I O N ? 107
DILEMMA
Is It OK to Use a Phone While Driving?
There has been considerable debate about whether drivers should be able to talk or text on their phones at the same time as driving (see Figure 4.2). People talk on their phones while walking, so why not be able to do the same thing when driving? The main reasons are that driving is more demanding, drivers are more prone to being distracted, and there is a greater chance of causing accidents (however, it is also the case that some people, when using their phones, walk out into a road without looking to see whether any cars are coming).
A meta-review of research that has investigated mobile phone use in cars has found that drivers’ reaction times are longer to external events when engaged in phone conversations (Caird et al., 2018). Drivers who use phones have also been found to be much poorer at stay- ing in their lane and maintaining the correct speed (Stavrinos et al., 2013). The reason for this is that drivers on a phone rely more on their expectations about what is likely to happen next and, as a result, respond much more slowly to unexpected events, such as the car in front of them stopping (Briggs et al., 2018). Moreover, phone conversations cause the driver visually to imagine what is being talked about. The driver may also imagine the facial expression of the person to whom they are speaking. The visual imagery involved competes for the processing resources also needed to enable the driver to notice and react to what is in front of them on the road. The idea that using a hands-free device is safer than actually holding the phone to carry out a conversation is false, as the same type of cognitive processing takes place both ways.
(Continued) Figure 4.2 How distracting is it to be texting the phone while driving?
Source: Tetra Images / Alamy Stock Photo
In several contexts, therefore, multitasking can be detrimental to performance, such as text- ing or speaking on the phone when driving. The cost of switching attention varies from person to person and which information resources are being switched between. When developing new technology to provide more information for people in their work settings, it is important to consider how best to support them so that they can easily switch their attention back and forth