research-article

The effect of cognitive abilities on information search for tasks of varying levels of complexity

Authors:

Jaime ArguelloAuthors Info & Claims

IIiX '14: Proceedings of the 5th Information Interaction in Context Symposium

Pages 165 - 174

https://doi.org/10.1145/2637002.2637022

Published: 26 August 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Although web search engines are designed as one-size-fits-all tools, people do not come in one size, but instead vary across many different attributes. One such attribute is cognitive ability. Because information search is primarily a cognitive activity, understanding the extent to which variations in cognitive abilities impact search behaviors and outcomes is especially important. We describe a study in which we explore how people's cognitive abilities affect their search behaviors and perceptions of workload while conducting search tasks with different levels of complexity. Twenty-one adults from the general public completed this study. We assessed participants' associative memory, perceptual speed, and visualization abilities and also measured workload. To evaluate the relationship between cognitive ability, task complexity and workload, we conducted three separate mixed factor ANOVAs corresponding to each of the abilities. Our results suggest three important trends: (1) associative memory ability had no significant effect on search behavior and workload, (2) visualization ability had a significant effect on search behavior, but not workload, and (3) perceptual speed had a significant effect on search behavior and workload. Specifically, participants with high perceptual speed ability engaged in more search activity in less time and experienced less workload. While the interactions were not significant, the differences were more pronounced for more complex tasks. We also found a significant relationship between task complexity and workload, and task complexity and search behaviors, which corroborates previous research.

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Cited By

Tang HBenerradi JMaior HPike MLandowska AWilson M(2024)Exploring the Impact of Verbal-Imagery Cognitive Style on Web Search Behaviour and Mental WorkloadProceedings of the 2024 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval10.1145/3627508.3638313(303-316)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627508.3638313
Sun JWu K(2024)Impact of information accessibility and diagnosticity on eye movements of children searching for informationThe Electronic Library10.1108/EL-10-2023-025542:4(617-642)Online publication date: 31-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-10-2023-0255
McGregor MAzzopardi LHalvey M(2023)A Systematic Review of Cost, Effort, and Load Research in Information Search and Retrieval, 1972–2020ACM Transactions on Information Systems10.1145/358306942:1(1-39)Online publication date: 18-Aug-2023
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Index Terms

The effect of cognitive abilities on information search for tasks of varying levels of complexity
1. Information systems
  1. Information retrieval

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IIiX '14: Proceedings of the 5th Information Interaction in Context Symposium

August 2014

368 pages

ISBN:9781450329767

DOI:10.1145/2637002

Conference Chairs:
David Elsweiler
University of Regensburg
,
Bernd Ludwig
University of Regensburg
,
Program Chairs:
Leif Azzopardi
University of Glasgow
,
Max L. Wilson
University of Nottingham

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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Published: 26 August 2014

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University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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IIiX '14

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University of Regensburg

IIiX '14: Fifth Information Interaction in Context Symposium

August 26 - 30, 2014

Regensburg, Germany

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IIiX '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 21 of 45 submissions, 47%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 21 of 45 submissions, 47%

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627508.3638313
Sun JWu K(2024)Impact of information accessibility and diagnosticity on eye movements of children searching for informationThe Electronic Library10.1108/EL-10-2023-025542:4(617-642)Online publication date: 31-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-10-2023-0255
McGregor MAzzopardi LHalvey M(2023)A Systematic Review of Cost, Effort, and Load Research in Information Search and Retrieval, 1972–2020ACM Transactions on Information Systems10.1145/358306942:1(1-39)Online publication date: 18-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3583069
Abu Onq N(2023)How do Human and Contextual Factors Affect the Way People Formulate Queries?Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval10.1145/3576840.3578336(499-503)Online publication date: 19-Mar-2023
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