Cognitive Processes Supporting Recognition in Complex and Dynamic Tasks

Abstract

Previous research has shown that anticipation is one of the best determinants of skill in numerous complex and dynamic domains, such as law enforcement, driving, aviation, surgery, and sport (for a review see Ward, Williams, & Hancock, 2006). Likewise, recognition ability has formed the cornerstone of much of the naturalistic decision making literature for the last 3 decades (e.g., Klein, Calderwood, & Clinton-Cirocco, 1986). In this research, we examined whether skill at anticipating the outcome of a dynamic situation would predict recognition skill, over and above domain-general measures of cognitive ability. We expected that domain-general cognition would account for some of the variance in recognition skill, but that anticipation skill would explain additional, unique variance. Counter to our expectations, anticipation skill did not explain significant unique variance. Instead, only one of the domain-general cognitive measures-spatial ability-was predictive of recognition skill, suggesting that training for improvement in recognition skill should be skill-specific.

The Cognitive Underpinnings of Option Generation in Everyday Life Decision‐Making: A Latent Variable Analysis

“…Therefore, higher levels of skill result in more task-relevant options in complex situations. This assumption is supported by recent studies focusing on decisions in sports as well as in law enforcement (Belling et al, 2014;Belling, Suss, & Ward, 2015b;Ward et al, 2011Ward et al, , 2013. Option generation in this framework is examined in familiar and well-defined situations in which routines and heuristics might be particularly relevant (Keller & Ho, 1988).…”

“…Other studies that are more in favor of a cue-based recall approach to option generation used scenarios that were highly familiar to the participants (e.g., Johnson & Raab, 2003). Furthermore, according to the long-term working memory model (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995) and empirical findings (Belling et al, 2014(Belling et al, , 2015bWard et al, 2013), expertise in a given scenario would be another important predictor of interindividual differences in option generation fluency. Importantly, since it is highly idiosyncratic how everyday situations are experienced in terms of familiarity or goals status, future studies should assess each individual's scenario-specific perceptions.…”

“…Previous research lends support to the hypothesis that option generation is a more or less automatic process which is largely affected by expertise (e.g., Klein, Wolf, Militello, & Zsambok, ; Mehle, ; Raab & Johnson, ; Ward et al., ). However, it entertains two competing hypotheses concerning the retrieval of options: Either retrieval is based on learned associative strength between options and the current situation (Johnson & Raab, ; Raab & Johnson, ) or retrieval is based on complex situation representations available in long‐term memory which result in an ordered menu of possible acts (Belling, Suss, & Ward, ). The latter assumption is fueled by research on the development of long‐term working memory with increasing expertise (Ericsson & Kintsch, ).…”