The Effect of Visual Representation Style in Problem-Solving:A Perspective from Cognitive Processes

<p>Using results from a controlled experiment and simulations based on cognitive models, we show that visual presentation style can have a significant impact on performance in a complex problem-solving task. We compared subject performances in two isomorphic, but visually different, tasks based on a card game of SET. Although subjects used the same strategy in both tasks, the difference in presentation style resulted in radically different reaction times and significant deviations in scanpath patterns in the two tasks. Results from our study indicate that low-level subconscious visual processes, such as differential acuity in peripheral vision and low-level iconic memory, can have indirect, but significant effects on decision making during a problem-solving task. We have developed two ACT-R models that employ the same basic strategy but deal with different presentations styles. Our ACT-R models confirm that changes in low-level visual processes triggered by changes in presentation style can propagate to higher-level cognitive processes. Such a domino effect can significantly affect reaction times and eye movements, without affecting the overall strategy of problem solving.</p>

Case-Based Reasoning, Analogy, and Interpolation

International audienceThis chapter presents several types of reasoning based on analogy and similarity. Case-based reasoning, presented in Section 2, consists in searching a case (where a case represents a problem-solving episode) similar to the problem to be solved and to adapt it to solve this problem. Section 3 is devoted to analogical reasoning and to recent developments based on analogical proportion. Interpolative reasoning, presented in Section 4 in the formal setting of fuzzy set representations, is another form of similarity-based reasoning