Orientation Tasks with Multiple Views of Space: Strategy Variability and Performance
Glenn Gunzelmann
John R. Anderson
Scott Douglass
Abstract
Three experiments demonstrate that participants vary in their approach to solving an orientation task. Verbal reports collected from the first study revealed that participants used at least two distinct strategies to complete the task. Some participants reported using a strategy based on mental imagery and mental rotation, while others reported using a more analytic approach. Two follow-up experiments involved training participants to perform the orientation task using one of these two strategies. In these experiments, measured by response time and eye movements, performance in the task differed as a function of the strategy used. An ACT-R model of the task that uses these strategies provides a validation of the proposed mechanisms, producing a close fit to both the response time and eye movement data. The model achieves this by incorporating perceptual, cognitive, and motor components, allowing it to perform all aspects of the task, from processing the information on the screen to making responses. Overall, the results indicate that strategic variability is an important feature of human performance on such tasks that future studies need to take into account.
Model