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

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.

Effects of task complexity on online search behavior of adolescents

“…Although they performed significantly better on the cause–effect task compared to the controversial topic task, time on task and time to formulate an answer did not differ significantly between those two tasks but was longer for both tasks when compared to the fact‐finding task. With regard to time on task, these findings are in line with earlier research, which also showed that more complex tasks required more time (Borlund & Dreier, ; Brennan et al, ; Liu et al, ). Participants needed more time to formulate an answer for the cause–effect task and the controversial topic task, which might indicate they experienced difficulty in those two tasks.…”

“…This is in line with the findings of other studies (Liu et al, ; Singer et al, ). Furthermore, several studies showed that more complex tasks require more time on task (Borlund & Dreier, ; Brennan, Kelly, & Arguello, ; Liu et al, ; Kelly et al, ) as well as for more specific time‐based measures like search time, time on SERPs, and reading time (Singer et al, ).…”

Personalization in text information retrieval: A survey

“…Various types of cognitive abilities have been studies regarding how they influence online information search. High PS users also reported lower levels of workload (Brennan, Kelly, & Arguello, 2014). It has been found that high PS users located relevant materials more effectively, that is, showing higher precision and recall (Allen, 1992); and more efficiently, that is, using less time (Al-Maskari & Sanderson, 2011).…”

A Task Completion Engine to Enhance Search Session Support for Air Traffic Work Tasks

“…Tasks: Our commercial partner supplied a number of typical work tasks performed by their analysts. Using a similar approach to Brennan et al [21], we selected ten work tasks, five of which we considered simple, and five of which we considered complex. The difficulty of these tasks was determined during a pilot study and measured by the number of interactions required to complete the task (i.e.…”