Cognitive strategies in matrix-reasoning tasks: State of the art

Laurence, Paulo Guirro; Macedo, Elizeu Coutinho de

doi:10.3758/s13423-022-02160-7

Cited by 14 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Participants in complex learning tasks tend to switch to faster or more simple strategies under time pressure (see Chuderski 2016 ); the same phenomenon is observed in mathematics tasks ( Caviola et al 2017 ) and is assumed to occur in working memory tasks ( Friedman and Miyake 2004 ; Lépine et al 2005 ; St Clair-Thompson 2007 ; Thomassin et al 2015 ). In the context of a matrix task, a change of strategy could mean turning away from the effective constructive matching strategy ( Chuderski 2016 ), which relies on the time-intensive process of reconstructing the correct answer by integrating all information in an item, to the less costly strategy of response elimination, which relies on testing each possible answer in turn to see if it seems to superficially fit the matrix (for a review, see Laurence and Macedo 2022 ; see also Bethell-Fox et al 1984 ; Snow 1980 ). There is also substantial evidence that participants often adopt a strategy of rapid guessing when under severe time constraints ( Attali 2005 ; Jin et al 2023 ; Schnipke and Scrams 1997 ; Schweizer et al 2021 ), which would mean turning away from both constructive matching and response elimination.…”

Section: Brief Literature Review Of the Potential Effects Of Time Pre...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Should Intelligence Tests Be Speeded or Unspeeded? A Brief Review of the Effects of Time Pressure on Response Processes and an Experimental Study with Raven’s Matrices

Gonthier

2023

J. Intell.

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Intelligence tests are often performed under time constraints for practical reasons, but the effects of time pressure on reasoning performance are poorly understood. The first part of this work provides a brief review of major expected effects of time pressure, which includes forcing participants to skip items, convoking a mental speed factor, constraining response times, qualitatively altering cognitive processing, affecting anxiety and motivation, and interacting with individual differences. The second part presents data collected with Raven’s matrices under three conditions of speededness to provide further insight into the complex effects of time pressure, with three major findings. First, even mild time pressure (with enough time available for all participants to complete the task at a leisurely pace) induced speeding throughout the whole task, starting with the very first item, and participants sped up more than was actually required. Second, time pressure came with lower confidence and poorer strategy use and a substantial decrease of accuracy (d = 0.35), even when controlling for response time at the item level—indicating a detrimental effect on cognitive processing beyond speeding. Third, time pressure disproportionately reduced response times for difficult items and participants with high ability, working memory capacity, or need for cognition, although this did not differentially affect ability estimates. Overall, both the review and empirical sections show that the effects of time pressure go well beyond forcing participants to speed or skip the last few items and make even mild time constraints inadvisable when attempting to measure maximal performance, especially for high-performing samples.

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Section: Brief Literature Review Of the Potential Effects Of Time Pre...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Should Intelligence Tests Be Speeded or Unspeeded? A Brief Review of the Effects of Time Pressure on Response Processes and an Experimental Study with Raven’s Matrices

Gonthier

2023

J. Intell.

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“…Raven's matrices require subjects to identify the missing piece in a picture among several alternatives, based on logical rules which apply across both rows and columns. This allows two major strategies (for a review, see Laurence & Macedo, 2023): constructive matching, which requires understanding the logical rules to mentally reconstruct the missing piece of the matrix; and response elimination, which involves examining all response alternatives to select one that seems to fit well with the matrix (Snow, 1978(Snow, , 1980; see also Bethell-Fox et al, 1984). The balance between these two strategies is reflected in gaze patterns in the task: spending a higher proportion of time on the matrix, waiting longer before viewing the responses, and toggling less often between the matrix and the responses all reflect more use of constructive matching and less use of response elimination (Vigneau et al, 2006).…”

Section: Strategy Use In Matrix Reasoning Tasksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of reasoning performance in Raven’s matrices is grounded in the development of effective strategy use.

Gonthier,

Harma,

Gavornikova-Baligand

2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Public Significance StatementRaven's matrices and similar matrix reasoning tasks are the test's most representative of fluid intelligence, and are used in the majority of both intelligence research and clinical assessments of intelligence (either alone or as part of a larger battery, such as Wechsler's scale of intelligence). Understanding the origin of individual differences and age-related differences of performance is therefore critical to correctly interpreting differences of reasoning performance between individuals or groups in both research and applied settings.

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“…In recent years, several approaches have been employed to discern the cognitive strategies individuals employ in the APM, such as self-report questionnaires, thinking-aloud protocols, and data mining algorithms based on eye-tracking data (for a review, see Laurence & Macedo, 2023).…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, since participants are required to fill out the questionnaire after completing the item or task, this method is easily influenced by their subjective awareness and memory bias (Jastrzębski et al, 2018;Laurence & Macedo, 2023). In contrast, a limited number of studies have endeavored to employ data mining algorithms to differentiate various strategies based on eye-tracking data in the APM, postulating that distinct strategies might correspond to diverse eye movement patterns (Hayes et al, 2011;Kucharský et al, 2020).…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Unveiling Cognitive Strategies: Clustering Eye-Tracking Measures in Computerized Matrix-Reasoning Tasks

Liu,

Man,

Zhan

2024

Preprint

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Cognitive strategies are interesting in their malleability and essential as fundamental drivers of reasoning success. Based on the eye-tracker enhanced computerized matrix-reasoning tasks, while data mining algorithms have been employed to unveil various visual search patterns in reasoning tasks, their success in identifying cognitive strategies has been partial, possibly due to not analyzing suitable data that can reflect together cognitive strategies. This study utilizes two clustering algorithms, K-means and K-prototypes, to categorize groups based on distinct cognitive strategies—construct matching and response elimination—using validated eye-tracking measures: proportional time on matrix area, rate of toggling, and rate of latency to first toggle. Key findings include (1) optimal categorization into two clusters for most items, aligning with established cognitive strategies; (2) the predominant influence of eye-tracking measures in strategy inference, with limited impact from additional response accuracy data; (3) superior performance of participants employing construct matching over response elimination in the majority of items; and (4) a tendency for participants to prefer construct matching on easier items. Overall, the study showcases the viability of data mining algorithms in identifying cognitive strategies through the analysis of pertinent eye-tracking measures.

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Cognitive strategies in matrix-reasoning tasks: State of the art

Cited by 14 publications

References 39 publications

Should Intelligence Tests Be Speeded or Unspeeded? A Brief Review of the Effects of Time Pressure on Response Processes and an Experimental Study with Raven’s Matrices

Should Intelligence Tests Be Speeded or Unspeeded? A Brief Review of the Effects of Time Pressure on Response Processes and an Experimental Study with Raven’s Matrices

Development of reasoning performance in Raven’s matrices is grounded in the development of effective strategy use.

Unveiling Cognitive Strategies: Clustering Eye-Tracking Measures in Computerized Matrix-Reasoning Tasks

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