Patrice Terrier

Gist Memory in the Unconscious-Thought Effect

The unconscious-thought effect (UTE) occurs when people are better able to make complex decisions after a period of distraction rather than immediately or after a period of conscious deliberation. This finding has often been interpreted as evidence of unconscious thinking. In two experiments, we provided the first evidence that the UTE is accompanied by enhanced memory for the gist of decision-relevant attributes and demonstrated that the cognitive demands of a distraction task moderate its effect on decision making and gist memory. It was only following a low-demand distraction task that participants chose the best alternative more often and displayed enhanced gist memory for decision-relevant attributes. These findings suggest that the UTE occurs only if cognitive resources are available and that it is accompanied by enhanced organization of information in memory, as shown by the increase in gist memory.

Depth of processing and design-assessment of ecological interfaces

Despite the cognitive vocation of a number of studies on the comparison of interfaces in sensitive industrial sectors such as the nuclear sector, and in spite of the presentation of new frameworks for both task analysis and reducing the mental load, one vital question remains: how does psychology enter into these studies? Very often the principle of depth of processing is the basis for interface design-assessment approaches in operating situations like those of nuclear reactors. This then justifies the use of a methodology based on recall. After presenting how this principle, which stems from the memory field, is the basis for the different interface designs recently proposed in the literature and the validation approach associated to these technical propositions, we present a pressurized water reactor operating situation that demonstrates the same willingness to act on reasoning through information displays. For powering up conditions, we show how integration of different representational levels has been achieved, and provide evidence for a Physical vs. a Physical and Functional display. All these features indirectly show that recent proposals on ecological interface design have some validity for real work situations, provided a context is selected. Finally, from this analysis, we define, by considering success as the limits of past experience, the conditions under which a recall technique can be used to demonstrate the efficiency of these new tools.

Analyzing feature distinctiveness in the processing of living and non-living concepts in Alzheimer’s disease

The conceptual structure account (CSA) is a model specifying the role of the living and non-living domain dichotomy in the structure of semantic memory. According to this model, feature distinctiveness and the perceptual-functional inter-correlation of concepts are assumed to play a major role in impairing the ability to discriminate between living and non-living concepts in Alzheimers disease (AD). The hypothesis was tested in this study by using naming and sorting tasks traditionally considered as assessing distinctiveness, and a property verification task where distinctiveness and perceptual-functional inter-correlation were objectively controlled against norms especially created for this purpose. Alzheimers patients (n=59) with minimal, mild or moderate dementia and normal elderly adults (n=31) participated in the study. Overall, the findings did not support the CSA predictions. They revealed a distinctiveness effect on response accuracy with shared features dominating distinctive features regardless of domain. They also revealed more difficulties in the tasks involving effortful processes. The results stress the need to consider both cognitive demands of tasks and structural aspects of knowledge in the evaluation of semantic memory in AD.

Evaluation of head-free eye tracking as an input device for air traffic control

The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility to integrate a free head motion eye-tracking system as input device in air traffic control (ATC) activity. Sixteen participants used an eye tracker to select targets displayed on a screen as quickly and accurately as possible. We assessed the impact of the presence of visual feedback about gaze position and the method of target selection on selection performance under different difficulty levels induced by variations in target size and target-to-target separation. We tend to consider that the combined use of gaze dwell-time selection and continuous eye–gaze feedback was the best condition as it suits naturally with gaze displacement over the ATC display and free the hands of the controller, despite a small cost in terms of selection speed. In addition, target size had a greater impact on accuracy and selection time than target distance. These findings provide guidelines on possible further implementation of eye tracking in ATC everyday activity. Practitioner Summary: We investigated the possibility to integrate a free head motion eye-tracking system as input device in air traffic control (ATC). We found that the combined use of gaze dwell-time selection and continuous eye–gaze feedback allowed the best performance and that target size had a greater impact on performance than target distance.

Problème d'accès ou déficit de stockage? Apport du niveau de complexité de la tâche à l'étude des troubles sémantiques lors du vieillissement pathologique: le cas de la maladie d'Alzheimer

This study investigates three principal aspects of semantic memory processing in Alzheimers disease: word finding, knowledge of the specific and generic attributes of concepts. Semantic memory is assessed by a range of verbal and visual tasks differentiated according to their level of complexity. Our hypothesis is that the processing of these types of information is modulated by the degree of effortful processing required by the tasks. The AD patients show more important difficulties on the tasks of high level of complexity. Nevertheless, although their performances improve when the level of complexity decreases, they significantly remain lower than those of the normal older subjects. These results are discussed with regard to the models of semantic memory, with particular reference to the debate in terms of a deficit of access or storage of this system in Alzheimer disease.

Assessing Web interaction with recollection: Age-related and task-related differences

The current study examined how young (n=26; mean=22.31years) and older Internet users (n=24; mean=64.54years) performed when they had to select and recollect information displayed in Web pages. Content-oriented and navigation-oriented information-finding tasks were used during the study phase. At test, the method made use of two recognition paradigms designed to assess recollection and the nature of representations in memory: namely, the remember/know procedure and a forced-choice recognition procedure which made it possible to compare the retrieval of detailed (verbatim-based) and semantic (gist-based) representations. The evidence from both procedures suggested that remembering was less contextualised in older participants. Furthermore, the idea that content-oriented searches impose greater processing demands than navigation-oriented searches in Web pages was confirmed for both age groups. Interestingly, the older Internet users experienced more difficulties in finding targets in navigation-oriented searches than in content-oriented searches.

The role of gist and verbatim memory in complex decision making: Explaining the unconscious-thought effect.

Previous research showed that the unconscious-thought effect, which refers to an improvement in complex decision making following a distraction period, was moderated by the presentation format of pieces of information about different options. The aim of the current study was to replicate this finding and further examine the memory representations underlying decision making following a distraction or a deliberation period. Results showed that, when the information was presented blocked per option, participants were better able to differentiate the best option from the others after a distraction period than immediately after the information presentation or after a deliberation period. In addition, distracted participants retrieved more gist representations of the options when the information was presented per option. By contrast, participants were better able to differentiate the best option from the others after a deliberation period when the information was presented per attribute. Participants who deliberated also retrieved more verbatim representations when the information was presented per attribute. Finally, mediation analyses indicated that the accuracy of the evaluations of the options depends on gist memory when distracted but on verbatim memory when deliberating. These findings suggest that the effectiveness of distraction or deliberation depends on the memory representations of the different options.

Information presentation format moderates the unconscious-thought effect: The role of recollection

ABSTRACT The unconscious-thought effect occurs when distraction improves complex decision-making. In two experiments using the unconscious-thought paradigm, we investigated the effect of presentation format of decision information (i) on memory for decision-relevant information and (ii) on the quality of decisions made after distraction, conscious deliberation or immediately. We used the process-dissociation procedure to measure recollection and familiarity. The two studies showed that presenting information blocked per criterion led participants to recollect more decision-relevant details compared to a presentation by option. Moreover, a Bayesian meta-analysis of the two studies provided strong evidence that conscious deliberation resulted in better decisions when the information was presented blocked per criterion and substantial evidence that distraction improved decision quality when the information was presented blocked per option. Finally, Study 2 revealed that the recollection of decision-relevant details mediated the effect of presentation format on decision quality in the deliberation condition. This suggests that recollection contributes to conscious deliberation efficacy.

Does textual feedback hinder spoken interaction in natural language

The aim of the study was to determine the influence of textual feedback on the content and outcome of spoken interaction with a natural language dialogue system. More specifically, the assumption that textual feedback could disrupt spoken interaction was tested in a human–computer dialogue situation. In total, 48 adult participants, familiar with the system, had to find restaurants based on simple or difficult scenarios using a real natural language service system in a speech-only (phone), speech plus textual dialogue history (multimodal) or text-only (web) modality. The linguistic contents of the dialogues differed as a function of modality, but were similar whether the textual feedback was included in the spoken condition or not. These results add to burgeoning research efforts on multimodal feedback, in suggesting that textual feedback may have little or no detrimental effect on information searching with a real system. Statement of Relevance: The results suggest that adding textual feedback to interfaces for human–computer dialogue could enhance spoken interaction rather than create interference. The literature currently suggests that adding textual feedback to tasks that depend on the visual sense benefits human–computer interaction. The addition of textual output when the spoken modality is heavily taxed by the task was investigated.

Task Analysis Does Count in Making the Abstraction Hierarchy Concrete: Evidence from a Pressurized Water Reactor Situation

Proponents of the Ecological Interface Design framework have recently highlighted two important assumptions: (a) the Abstraction Hierarchy (AH) would only be a representation of the work domain, not a task representation; (b) the development of an ecological display that presents information at different levels of abstraction should be based on a full implementation of the Abstraction Hierarchy. However, as revealed by our field studies, these assumptions might dismiss the role of task analysis in making the AH concrete. First, the presentation of mass balance and energy balance in an ecological display is important because these kinds of equilibrium constitute what the operator should maintain. Second, the use of an AH and its implementation in an effective work situation will probably be state-specific. Important parameters to be monitored, mass and energy balances that should be assessed, change as a function of the overall state of the process.