Effects of prior knowledge on use of cognitive capacity in three complex cognitive tasks

Britton, Bruce K.; Tesser, Abraham

doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(82)90709-5

Cited by 175 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Britton et al (1979) and Britton and Tessor (1982) have convincingly demonstrated that for reading tasks the expenditure of effort conforms to the predictions of the prior knowledge hypothesis. The present findings for writing tasks seem equally compelling in support of the workload hypothesis.…”

mentioning

confidence: 76%

“…Although Britton and Tessor (1982) did not monitor process efficiency and product quality, the quality of performance on one of their tasks, reading, hadbeen checked in previous research in terms of passage recall (Britton, Holdredge, Curry, & Westbrook, 1979).…”

Section: Cognitive Effort In Writing 259mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Undoubtedly, these other tasks would interfere with writing performance. Although it is ideal to use more than one secondary task to ensure that secondary task interference reflects cognitive effort and not structural interference alone (Kahneman, 1973), such a precaution was not practical here or in the complex tasks studied by Britton and Tessor (1982). Selecting a task that is low in structural interference seemed to be a reasonable alternative.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of topic knowledge on the allocation of processing time and cognitive effort to writing processes

1987

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Conditions of low and high knowledge about the topic of a writing task were compared in terms of the time and cognitive effort allocated to writing processes. These processes were planning ideas, translating ideas into text, and reviewing ideas and text during document composition. Directed retrospection provided estimates of the time devoted to each process, and secondary task reaction times indexed the cognitive effort expended. Topic knowledge was manipulated by selecting subjects in Experiment 1 and by selecting topics in Experiment 2. The retrospection results indicated that both low-and high-knowledge writers intermixed planning, translating, and reviewing during all phases of composing. There was no evidence that low-and high-knowledge writers adopt different strategies for allocating processing time. About 50 % of writing time was devoted to translating throughout composition. From early to later phases of composing, the percentage of time devoted to planning decreased and that devoted to reviewing increased. The secondary task results showed that the degree of cognitive effort devoted to planning, translating, and reviewing depended on the task. Also, the high-knowledge writers expended less effort overall than did the low-knowledge writers; there was no difference in allocation strategy across planning, translating, and reviewing.Research on the writing process has increased markedly in recent years (Beach & Bridwell, 1984;de Beaugrande, 1980; Frederiksen & Dominic, 1981; Gregg & Steinberg, 1980;Nystrand, 1982). This interest is warranted given the importance of writing in work settings (Faigley & Miller, 1982;Odell & Goswami, 1984) and the concern raised by the ongoing National Assessment of Educational Progress that schools are not adequately preparing students in writing. Although research advances are being made, numerous basic questions remain, at best, only partially answered. One such question is how the knowledge of the writer affects the writing process. The importance of knowledge differences in other tasks, such as reading comprehension (Voss, Vesonder, & Spilich, 1980) and problem solving (Chi, Feltovich, & Glaser, 1981), suggests that this should be a key factor in writing.Writers differ in what they know about their language, audience, and topic (Applebee, 1982). The present studies examined how knowledge of the topic being written about affects the amount of processing time and cognitive effort allocated to various writing processes. Although linguistic and audience knowledge also deserve exploration, they fall beyond the scope of this initial investigation. Processing time and cognitive effort were selected because, as will be discussed below, they concern two prominent features of writing based on current theory and empirical findings.The author thanks the anonymous reviewers for the useful suggestions they provided on an earlier version of this manuscript. Requests for reprints should be addressed to Ronald T. Kellogg, Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, M...

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confidence: 76%

Section: Cognitive Effort In Writing 259mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of topic knowledge on the allocation of processing time and cognitive effort to writing processes

1987

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“…Britton and his colleagues (Britton, Glyrm, Meyer, 8c Penland, 1982;Britten, Holdredge, Curry, & Westbrook, 1979;Britton & Tesser, 1982) have used reaction times to a click as the secondary task with a variety of complex cognitive tasks as the primary task. They found that the second-ary task could be used to indicate the cognitive capacity required by the primary task.…”

Section: Experimental Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Load During Problem Solving: Effects on Learning

1988

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Considerable evidence indicates that domain specific knowledge in the form of schemas is the primary factor distinguishing experts from novices in problem‐solving skill. Evidence that conventional problem‐solving activity is not effective in schema acquisition is also accumulating. It is suggested that a major reason for the ineffectiveness of problem solving as a learning device, is that the cognitive processes required by the two activities overlap insufficiently, and that conventional problem solving in the form of means‐ends analysis requires a relatively large amount of cognitive processing capacity which is consequently unavailable for schema acquisition. A computational model and experimental evidence provide support for this contention. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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“…Britton and Tesser (1982) suggested that the cognitive capacity of an individual varies as a function of prior knowledge. Specifically, high prior knowledge increases the cognitive capacity used in the situation.…”

Section: Pittenger and Brittonmentioning

confidence: 99%

A computerized cognitive laboratory: A software package for the cognitive psychology laboratory class

Pittenger

Britton

1985

Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers

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The package of programs described here allows a teacher/researcher to demonstrate several important concepts in the area of experimental cognitive psychology. These programs may be used either for an in-class demonstration of a particular concept or for a laboratory course that requires the student to collect and analyze data germane to the topic area being studied. There are similar packages available, such as the one described by Simpson and Burgess (1984); the present package, however, includes a broader range of demonstrations that can be used with most Commodore computers.In general, all of the programs replicate an experiment or a standard procedure that has been used to examine a specific cognitive process. Indeed, when appropriate, the procedures of a well-known published experiment have been reproduced. All programs have been written in the BASIC language for the Commodore computer systems and will operate on both the CBM/PET series and the Commodore 64 system. The exceptions to this are the programs requiring color, which will operate only on the Commodore 64. The programs can also be copied and, with moderate modifications, be made compatible with other microcomputer systems (see Brain, Oviate, Paquin, & Stone, 1981, for information on the translation process within the BASIC dialects for the Commodore, Apple II, and TRS-80 systems). For experiments in which reaction times are measured, the system's internal' 'jiffy' , clock is used. This clock is accurate to within %0 of a second, and all timed functions are reported to the nearest %00 of a second.Each program requires a minimum of instruction of the student and is constructed to decrease the chance of the program's being interrupted by inadvertent responses. The entire package is menu driven. That is, once the menu program is loaded into the computer, all demonstrations are loaded and run through program language. For the most part, the students are required only to use the " < " and" >" keys to register their responses. Each program offers brief instructions for the type of response required and has appropriate subroutines to detect incorrect responses. Programs that require students to use the alFunding for the software package was provided through a grant awarded to the second author by the Office of Instructional Development, University of Georgia, Athens, GA. All correspondence should be addressed to David J. Pittenger, Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. phabetic keys do not require fast entry of data, and, if necessary, typographical errors can be corrected easily. Typically, the demonstrations can be completed within 20 min. At the conclusion of each demonstration, the data collected are presented, in tabular form, on the screen of the computer. A hard copy of the data may also be made if a printer is available. Description of ProgramsFree recall and recognition. This series of programs demonstrates the effects of two different types of memory task on the amount of material that can be retrieved from memory. In...

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Effects of prior knowledge on use of cognitive capacity in three complex cognitive tasks

Cited by 175 publications

References 30 publications

Effects of topic knowledge on the allocation of processing time and cognitive effort to writing processes

Effects of topic knowledge on the allocation of processing time and cognitive effort to writing processes

Cognitive Load During Problem Solving: Effects on Learning

A computerized cognitive laboratory: A software package for the cognitive psychology laboratory class

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