Effects Of Task Context Research Articles

Tracking e-reading behavior: uncovering the effects of task context, electronic experience, and motivation

Although electronic reading of fiction has become mainstream, little is known about how electronic texts are read, and whether this behavior is connected to readers’ motivation or experience reading electronically. To address this gap, sixty undergraduate students’ reading behavior was tracked while reading a 15-page short story. A novel method was used to study participants’ frequency of task-switching, their reading speed, and navigational patterns unobtrusively, outside of the lab. Reading behavior was analyzed by two multilevel models to assess (1) whether variance in behavior could be predicted by the task context, such as location in text or timing of reading sessions, and (2) whether behavior was connected to participants’ situational motivation to read the short story, their contextual motivation toward reading as an activity, or their task-relevant electronic experience. Our results showed that highly experienced and avid readers reacted to text difficulty more adaptively, indicating that motivation and electronic experience may have a key role in supporting comprehension. In contrast, situational motivation was not associated with reading behavior, contrary to our expectations. These findings provide a significant contribution to our understanding of e-reading, which can be used as a foundation to support recreational reading engagement on digital devices.

Effects of task context on EEG correlates of mind-wandering.

This study was designed to examine how mind-wandering and its neural correlates vary across tasks with different attentional demands, motivated by the context regulation hypothesis of mind-wandering. Participants (n = 59 undergraduates) completed the sustained attention to response task (SART) and the Stroop selective attention task in counterbalanced order while EEG was recorded. The tasks included experience-sampling probes to identify self-reported episodes of mind-wandering, along with retrospective reports. Participants reported more mind-wandering during the SART than the Stroop and during whichever task was presented second during the session, compared with first. Replicating previous findings, EEG data (n = 37 usable participants) indicated increased alpha oscillations during episodes of mind-wandering, compared with on-task episodes, for both the SART and Stroop tasks. ERP data, focused on the P2 component reflecting perceptual processing, found that mind-wandering was associated with increased P2 amplitudes during the Stroop task, counter to predictions from the perceptual decoupling theory. Overall, the study found that self-report and neural correlates of mind-wandering are sensitive to task context. This line of research can further the understanding of how mechanisms of mind-wandering are adapted to varied tasks and situations.

The representational dynamics of the animal appearance bias in human visual cortex are indicative of fast feedforward processing

Abstract The human visual system has a seemingly unique tendency to interpret zoomorphic objects as animals, not as objects. This animal appearance bias is very strong in the ventral visual pathway as measured through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), but it is absent in feedforward deep convolutional neural networks. Here we investigate how this bias emerges over time by probing its representational dynamics through multivariate electroencephalography (EEG). The initially activated representations to lookalike zoomorphic objects are very similar to the representations activated by animal pictures and very different from the neural responses to regular objects. Neural responses that reflect the true identity of the zoomorphic objects as inanimate objects are weaker and appear later, as do effects of task context. The strong early emergence of an animal appearance bias strongly supports a feedforward explanation, indicating that lack of recurrence in deep neural networks is not an explanation for their failure to show this bias.

Incorporating an engineering context into science learning: The effects of task context and response structuring on science understanding and investigation behaviors in a simulation

AbstractThe interrelationship of science and engineering and the recent inclusion of engineering in K‐12 science standards have promoted the incorporation of engineering design in science classrooms. However, empirical studies on the impacts of engineering design on science learning show mixed findings and indicate that factors such as the complexity of design tasks, a lack of connections between design tasks and the underlying science concepts, and the limited experience with engineering among science teachers can influence learning gains from design activities. One useful approach for addressing these challenges is through the use of technologies such as interactive simulations, which have become increasingly prevalent in STEM education. In the present study, we used a simulation to investigate the effects of task context (science vs. engineering) on students' investigation behaviors and their understanding of science concepts. Furthermore, considering the relative novelty and complexity of an engineering context to many students, we examined how structuring students' responses in the engineering context affects their behaviors and learning. A total of 349 high school students were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: science, structured engineering, and unstructured engineering. In the science condition, students used the simulation to investigate the effects of four variables on the saturation concentration of solutions. Using the same simulation, students in the structured and unstructured engineering conditions were directed to recommend the optimal variable values that meet a set of given constraints and maximize the saturation concentration for a commercial product. The only difference between the two engineering conditions was whether structuring was provided in the response fields presented to students as they entered responses for the target variables. Results suggested that the engineering context stimulated students to engage in more comprehensive investigation behaviors as compared to the science context. In contrast, students in the science condition exhibited more systematic behaviors. However, the increased comprehensiveness of behaviors in the engineering conditions did not translate into significantly greater learning of the science content in these conditions, indicating that students might have focused on the surface features associated with the engineering goal without making deep connections between the two domains. Furthermore, structuring students' responses within an engineering context as used in the current study did not lead to significant differences in investigation behaviors or learning outcomes.

Minimal evidence for task context effects on early visual object processing

Minimal evidence for task context effects on early visual object processing

Attention to numerosity varies across individuals and task contexts

ABSTRACT Children’s spontaneous focus on numerosity (SFON) is described as an unprompted tendency that is stable across contexts. The attention to number task (AtN), an experimental forced-choice picture-matching task designed to evaluate select aspects of children’s focus on numerosity, may reveal whether task materials can implicitly prompt children to focus on numerosity. In two studies, we replicate earlier findings showing an effect of task context on children’s performance on the AtN: When asked to identify one or more matches to a target picture from an array of four options, the frequency with which preschoolers and adults identify a numerosity-based match varies as a function of the features on which the remaining match options are based. We addressed a limitation of the original AtN study by including novel combinations of features as additional trials, with which we continued to demonstrate contextual effects. We also showed that adults seemed more susceptible than children to be primed to attend to numerosity on subsequent trials. Children’s focus on numerosity under these experimental conditions was remarkably low. We discuss the implications of these findings for better understanding the SFON construct.

Identifying task-general effects of stimulus familiarity in the parietal memory network

Studies of human memory have implicated a “parietal memory network” in the recognition of familiar stimuli. However, the automatic vs. top-down nature of information processing within this network is not yet understood. If the network processes stimuli automatically, one can expect repetition-related changes both when familiarity is central to an ongoing task and when it is task-irrelevant. Here, we tested this prediction in a group of 40 human subjects using fMRI. Subjects initially named 100 objects aloud in the scanner. They then repeated the same task with novel and previously-named objects intermixed (where familiarity was not task-relevant) and separately were asked to make old/new recognition decisions in response to pictures of novel and previously-named objects (where familiarity was central to task completion). Accuracy was matched across conditions, and voice reaction times reflected typical behavioral priming effects. Repetition enhancement effects were restricted primarily to parietal cortex—and in particular, the parietal memory network—and were task-general in nature, whereas repetition suppression effects were task-dependent and occurred primarily in frontal and ventral temporal cortex. Task context effects were also present in the parietal memory network and impacted responses to both novel and familiar items. We conclude by discussing implications of these findings with respect to current hypotheses regarding parietal contributions to memory retrieval.

Task influences pattern discriminability for faces and bodies in ventral occipitotemporal cortex

ABSTRACTOur prior research showed that faces and bodies activate overlapping regions of the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (VOTC). However, faces and bodies were nonetheless discriminable in these same overlapping regions when their spatial patterns of activity were classified using multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA). Here we investigated whether these spatial patterns and their time courses were influenced by different categorization tasks. Participants viewed pictures of faces or headless bodies depicting a happy or fearful emotion. In one task, they categorized the picture as a face or a body regardless of emotion. In the other task, they categorized the emotion regardless of whether it was depicted by a face or body. Using a classifier trained on independent data, we found higher face–body classification accuracy for the emotion categorization task. The classifier was applied to each post-stimulus time-point to characterize the temporal course of classification. Accuracy initially rose equivalently above chance for both tasks, but then increased over a longer duration when participants categorized emotions. Thus, the temporal course of pattern differences between faces and bodies in VOTC was modulated by the behavioral goal of the observer, suggesting the top-down modulatory effect of task context on the category-selectivity activity in the VOTC.

Assessment of scientific reasoning: The effects of task context, data, and design on student reasoning in control of variables

Scientific reasoning is an important component under the cognitive strand of the 21st century skills and is highly emphasized in the new science education standards. This study focuses on the assessment of student reasoning in control of variables (COV), which is a core sub-skill of scientific reasoning. The main research question is to investigate the extent to which the existence of experimental data in questions impacts student reasoning and performance. This study also explores the effects of task contexts on student reasoning as well as students’ abilities to distinguish between testability and causal influences of variables in COV experiments. Data were collected with students from both USA and China. Students received randomly one of two test versions, one with experimental data and one without. The results show that students from both populations (1) perform better when experimental data are not provided, (2) perform better in physics contexts than in real-life contexts, and (3) students have a tendency to equate non-influential variables to non-testable variables. In addition, based on the analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data, a possible progression of developmental levels of student reasoning in control of variables is proposed, which can be used to inform future development of assessment and instruction.

Effects of task context during standing reach on postural control in young and older adults: A pilot study

Reaching is an important component of daily activities with goals to interact and acquire objects in the environment. The task context of reaching, as determined by the behavioral goal and the properties of the object, can influence the control of posture and movements. This study examined age differences in postural stability during a forward reach under two task contexts, grasping versus pointing to a target. Young and older participants living in the community performed the tasks from the standing position. They reached forward, grasped or pointed to a target, and then returned to an upright posture as fast as possible. Postural stability was analyzed using the center of pressure (COP) during two phases of the task: the reaching movement phase and the returning movement phase. In the grasping context, the COP path deviations were significantly larger in older compare to young participants during both the reach and the return movement phases. In addition, during the return movement phase, only older participants showed a context-dependent increase in COP path deviations after grasping compared to pointing. The results highlight the impact of task context on postural stability during standing reach in young and older adults. Interventions for older adults with balance problems should consider incorporating activities that involve the interaction with objects of various properties in the environment. Future studies are necessary to investigate the factors underlying the person-environment interplay of postural control and the adaptation of anticipatory postural control associated with object interaction during functional tasks in older adults.

Electrophysiological signatures of intentional social coordination in the 10–12Hz range

This study sought to investigate the effects of manipulating social coordination on brain synchronization/de-synchronization in the mu band. Mu activation is associated with understanding and coordinating motor acts and may play a key role in mediating social interaction. Members of a dyad were required to interact with one another in a rhythmic finger movement coordination task under various instructions: intrinsic where each member of the dyad was instructed to maintain their own and ignore their partner's movement; in-phase where they were asked to synchronize with their partner's movement; and anti-phase where they were instructed to syncopate with their partner's movement. EEG and movement data were recorded simultaneously from both subjects during all three tasks and a control condition. Log power ratios of EEG activity in the active conditions versus control were used to assess the effect of task context on synchronization/de-synchronization in the mu spectral domain. Results showed clear and systematic modulation of mu band activity in the 10-12 Hz range as a function of coordination context. In the left hemisphere general levels of alpha-mu suppression increased progressively as one moved from intrinsic through in-phase to anti-phase contexts but with no specific central-parietal focus. In contrast the right hemisphere displayed context-specific changes in the central-parietal region. The intrinsic condition showed a right synchronization which disappeared with the in-phase context even as de-synchronization remained greater in the left hemisphere. Anti-phase was associated with larger mu suppression in the right in comparison with left at central-parietal region. Such asymmetrical changes were highly correlated with changing behavioral dynamics. These specific patterns of activation and deactivation of mu activity suggest that localized neural circuitry in right central-parietal regions mediates how individuals interpret the movements of others in the context of their own actions. A right sided mechanism in the 10-12 Hz range appears to be involved in integrating the mutual information among the members of a dyad that enables the dynamics of social interaction to unfold in time.

Making Service Improvement Happen

This article illustrates the importance of social context in generating positive service improvement outcomes. Empirically, the qualitative research is based on a multilevel approach to theorizing from context. It considers the dimensions of the social and task contexts constraining and enabling service improvement in three Irish hospitals. Cross-sector case comparison (public, voluntary/nonprofit, and private sector) is used to consider the influence of task context, while attention to in-organization arrangements is used to consider the social context. The authors identify the influence of the task context on service improvement capacity and the influence of the social context on service improvement climate. Crucially, by taking account of service improvement outcomes, the authors identify both (a) the relative importance of the social context and (b) the impact of contextual configurations, through which the social context can either countervail or enhance task context effects. The findings suggest that organizations should focus on developing their social contexts to augment service improvement.

Anticipatory planning deficits and task context effects in hemiparetic cerebral palsy

Individuals with hemiparetic cerebral palsy (HCP) display deviant motor output, predominantly on one side of the body. The question pursued here is whether HCP participants have the ability to anticipate the forthcoming perceptual-motor demands of the goal of an action sequence. Such anticipatory planning was necessary to successfully perform the tasks that were studied. In experiment I, HCP participants had to grasp a hexagonal knob with their unimpaired hand by choosing one of five possible grasping patterns (free choice) and consequently rotate it 60 degrees, 120 degrees, or 180 degrees clockwise or counterclockwise. HCP participants showed a large amount of task failures that were persistent throughout the task. These findings suggest a deficit in anticipatory planning. No such task failures were observed for the control group. In addition, the instructed degree of rotation had less effect on the selected grasping pattern for the HCP participants than for the controls. In experiment II, we investigated if HCP participants are prone to use context information that is directly available in the task, instead of planning the forthcoming perceptual-motor demands. To that aim, an arrow was inserted at one of the sides of the hexagon in a position that had no relevance for the action to be planned and executed. The location of this arrow significantly affected the grip selected in the HCP participants, but not in controls. Overall, the results suggest an anticipatory planning deficit in HCP participants that may be caused by an impairment at the motor imagery level. Consequently, as an alternative strategy, performance in HCP participants was predominantly based on information directly available in the task context.

The BOLD response during Stroop task-like inhibition paradigms: Effects of task difficulty and task-relevant modality

Previous studies of the Stroop task propose two key mediators: the prefrontal and cingulate cortices but hints exist of functional specialization within these regions. This study aimed to examine the effect of task modality upon the prefrontal and cingulate response by examining the response to colour, number, and shape Stroop tasks whilst BOLD fMRI images were acquired on a Siemens 3 T MRI scanner. Behavioural analyses indicated facilitation and interference effects and a noticeable effect of task difficulty. Some modular effects of modality were observed in the prefrontal cortex that survived exclusion of task difficulty related activations. No effect of task-relevant information was observed in the anterior cingulate. Future comparisons of the mediation of selective attention need to consider the effects of task context and task difficulty.

Mentale vermoeidheid en doelgericht handelen: effecten van taakcontext op de sturing van gedrag

Mental fatigue and goal-oriented behaviour: effects of task context on behaviour guidance Mental fatigue and goal-oriented behaviour: effects of task context on behaviour guidance Dimitri van der Linden, Gedrag & Organisatie, Volume 17, August 2004, nr. 4, pp. 252-271. As mental fatigue is related to performance and safety, it has received considerable interest from researchers in work psychology. Nevertheless, much is unknown about the specific way fatigue affects task behaviour and performance. In the current article we argue that fatigue affects behaviour through a decreased impact of conscious goals and behavioural rules on choice of actions. This would manifest itself as a diminished cognitive flexibility and as difficulties in executing or initiating planning. We present two experiments in which we investigate whether fatigue-induced participants show less flexibility and planning than non-fatigued participants. In experiment 1 (n = 65), participants had to explore a computer application unfamiliar to them. In experiment 2 (n = 58) participants worked on standard neuropsychological tests that assessed flexibility and planning. The results of both experiments showed that, compared to the non-fatigued participants, fatigue participants were less flexible and displayed less effective or less efficient planning. These results support the idea of decreased influence of conscious goals and rules under fatigue. This conclusion has practical implications for as it may support the prediction and prevention of fatigue-related errors and accidents.

Effects of task context and fluctuations of attention on neural activity supporting performance of the Stroop task

The influence of task context and transient fluctuations in attentional control on neural processes supporting performance of the Stroop task was investigated using event-related brain potentials. Task context was manipulated by varying the proportion of congruent and incongruent trials across different blocks of trials, and fluctuations of attentional control were considered by examining differences between trials eliciting faster and slower responses. The amplitudes of the N450, thought to reflect the suppression of a conceptual level processing system, and a temporo-parietal slow wave, thought to index the processing of color information, were greater when trials were mostly congruent in comparison to when trials were mostly incongruent. These findings indicate that the neural systems supporting inhibition and color processing are modulated by task demands. For the N450 the effect of task context interacted with the efficiency of attentional control being present for those trials eliciting faster responses and not for those trials eliciting slower responses. This finding is consistent with those from a growing number of studies indicating that the neural systems supporting attentional control are transient in nature, tending to fluctuate in efficiency over time.

Research on Learning

Research on Learning

Priming effects on lexical access and decision processes: A signal-detection analysis

Signal-detection methodology was employed to examine the assumption that in a lexical-decision task context effects are primarily the result of post-access processes. Experiment 1, in which prime-relatedness was varied within subjects, found changes in target sensitivity (d′) without corresponding changes in the response criterion. This outcome was interpreted as evidence that prior context facilitates lexical access, whereas post-access contributions remain constant across conditions. When prime-relatedness was varied between subjects in Experiment 2, the lexical-decision task showed differing context effects on access processes as well as on post-access processes. It was concluded that subjects adopt a single response criterion suited to maximize task performance. The particular response criterion adopted is a function of the stimulus set rather than a function of the relationship between prime and target on any single trial. Finally, it was concluded that post-access strategies alone are insufficient to account for context effects obtained when typical lexical-decision-task procedures are used, or to account for the magnitude of the differences obtained between the present experiments.

Some effects of task context on implicit communication theory

This paper reports the results of two experiments designed to test the impact of certain task variables on implicit communication theory. More specifically, the solution multiplicity dimension of tasks influences the formality and cooperation dimensions of an individual's implicit communication theory; and difficulty also affects perceptions of equality in the communication. The results are discussed in terms of contextual influences on communication.