Once and for all - How people change strategy to ignore irrelevant information in visual tasks

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_CFBA2570B29E
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Once and for all - How people change strategy to ignore irrelevant information in visual tasks
Journal
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
Author(s)
Gaschler R., Marewski J. N., Frensch P. A.
ISSN
1747-0218
Publication state
Published
Issued date
03/2015
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
68
Number
3
Pages
543-567
Language
english
Abstract
Ignoring irrelevant visual information aids efficient interaction with task environments. We studied how people, after practice, start to ignore the irrelevant aspects of stimuli. For this we focused on how information reduction transfers to rarely practised and novel stimuli. In Experiment 1, we compared competing mathematical models on how people cease to fixate on irrelevant parts of stimuli. Information reduction occurred at the same rate for frequent, infrequent, and novel stimuli. Once acquired with some stimuli, it was applied to all. In Experiment 2, simplification of task processing also occurred in a once-for-all manner when spatial regularities were ruled out so that people could not rely on learning which screen position is irrelevant. Apparently, changes in eye movements were an effect of a once-for-all strategy change rather than a cause of it. Overall, the results suggest that participants incidentally acquired knowledge about regularities in the task material and then decided to voluntarily apply it for efficient task processing. Such decisions should be incorporated into accounts of information reduction and other theories of strategy change in skill acquisition.
Keywords
Information reduction, Shortcut, Skill acquisition, Strategy change
Web of science
Create date
26/06/2014 11:11
Last modification date
20/08/2019 15:50
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