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The relationships of autism quotient (AQ), systematizing (SQ), and empathizing (EQ), with over-selectivity were explored to assess whether over-selectivity is implicated in complex social skills, which has been assumed, but not experimentally examined. Eighty participants (aged 18-60) were trained on a simultaneous discrimination task (AB+CD-), and tested in extinction on the degree to which they had learned about both elements of the reinforced (AB) compound. Higher AQ and lower EQ scorers demonstrated greater over-selectivity, but there was no relationship between SQ and over-selectivity. These results imply that high AQ scorers perform similarly to individuals with ASD on this cognitive task, and that over-selectivity may be related to some complex social skills, like empathy., Author(s): Phil Reed [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) 0000 0001 0658 8800grid.4827.9Department of Psychology, Swansea University, Singleton Park, SA2 8PP, Swansea, UK Introduction The concept of a broad autistic phenotype implies [...]

Task difficulty in delayed matching-to-sample tasks (DMTS) is increased by increasing the length of a retention interval. When tasks become more difficult, choice behavior becomes more susceptible to bias produced by unequal reinforcer ratios. Delaying reinforcement from choice behavior also increases both task difficulty and the biasing effect of unequal reinforcer probability. Six pigeons completed nine DMTS conditions with retention intervals of 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8 sec, in which reinforcer delays of 0, 2, and 4 sec were combined with ratios of reinforcer probabilities of .5/.5, .2/.8, and .8/.2 for correct red and green responses. Discriminability (log d) decreased with both increasing retention interval duration and increasing reinforcer delay. Sensitivity to reinforcement, the tendency for ratios of c hoice responses to follow unequal reinforcer probabilities, also increased as a function of both increasing retention interval and increasing reinforcer delay. The result is consistent with the view that remembering in DMTS tasks is a discriminated operant in which increasing task difficulty increases sensitivity to reinforcement.

Performance in the McGeorge and Burton (1990) digit invariance task was originally thought to be mediated by unconscious abstraction of a 'rule' that identified the invariant feature across all study items. Subsequent explanations have suggested explicit strategy use or similarity-to-exemplar matching rather than abstraction. This paper presents data that suggest that both similarity and abstraction can be used under different task demands. Delay between study and test afforded abstraction of the invariant knowledge whereas reducing the pool of study exemplars enhanced responding based on specific similarity. These results parallel effects found in the categorization literature. Rule abstraction in this sense may be due to statistical learning of feature frequency rather than abstraction of a central tendency or a complex/conceptual rule. Categorizing responses into subjective memory states (remember/know/guess) demonstrates that neither the similarity matching nor the abstraction mechanism uses information from episodic memory. Confidence measures show that participants are more confident of responses when the prototypical representation is used but not specific similarity. Taken together, these data suggest that abstracted knowledge is not held consciously but that participants have meta-awareness of when they are using the abstracted representation.

When we switch to a new task, performance is transiently relatively poor, but improves dramatically after one trial. Such a 'switch cost' may result from the preceding task being highly primed while the new task is not yet primed. This predicts that it should become more difficult to switch back to Task A when more trials of Task B have intervened. Such a lag effect has been found in some but not in most previous experiments, and to resolve this discrepancy we examined the effects of task lag with different stimuli. We found that when stimuli uniquely and clearly cued the task--minimizing the need for control--switch reaction time increased with task lag. However, when the need for control was increased by using similar or identical stimuli in the two tasks, this lag effect was abolished or reversed. Thus only when control processes are minimized can priming explain the difficulty of switching back from Task B to Task A. Second, we asked how the impact of control is mediated in conditions where it is not minimized. If it is mediated through altering the relative activation states of competing tasks, then as it becomes easier to do one task--the relative task-set activation state is tipped in that task's favour--it should always become harder to do the other task. On the other hand, if control bias affects switch performance directly, this relationship need not hold. We found that as it becomes easier to perform one task it can become easier, not harder, to switch to the competing task. Thus control bias must act directly on switch performance, rather than only through its influence on relative task-set activation.

The aims of the study were to assess the availability of verbal coding and its effect on performance in a standard visual matrix task, the Visual Patterns Test (VPT). In a pilot study, participants were presented with the patterns from the VPT and were asked to name the shapes within them. Availability of verbal codes was low overall; however, some patterns resulted in a higher mean number of labels than others. A modified version of the test was created from those patterns that had produced the lowest mean number of labels. A total of 60 participants then took part in an experimental study, which was carried out to assess whether or not the availability of verbal coding affects task performance. It was found that the modified version resulted in a lower visual working-memory span than that of another version in which the availability of verbal coding was higher. The study confirmed that verbal coding does influence visual matrix task performance; however, the modified version now offers a selection of patterns from the VPT where verbal coding has been limited.

The above-right/below-left mapping advantage with vertical stimuli and horizontal responses is known as the orthogonal stimulus--response compatibility (SRC) effect. We investigated whether the orthogonal SRC effect emerges with irrelevant stimulus dimensions. In Experiment 1, participants responded with a right or left key press to the colour of the stimulus presented above or below the fixation. We observed an above-right/below-left advantage (orthogonal Simon effect). In Experiment 2, we manipulated the polarity in the response dimension by varying the horizontal location of the response set. The orthogonal Simon effect decreased and even reversed as the left response code became more positive. This result provides evidence for the automatic activation of the positive and negative response codes by the corresponding positive and negative stimulus codes. These findings extended the orthogonal SRC effect based on coding asymmetry to an irrelevant stimulus dimension.

Factors affecting performance on base-10 tasks were investigated in a series of four studies with a total of 453 children aged 5-7 years. Training in counting-on was found to enhance child performance on base-10 tasks (Studies 2, 3, and 4), while prior knowledge of counting-on (Study 1), trading (Studies 1 and 3), and partitioning (Studies 1 and 4) were associated with enhanced base-10 performance. It emerged that procedural knowledge of counting-on, trading, and partitioning can lead to improvements in procedural knowledge of the base-10 system. The findings lend support to the model of iterative development of conceptual and procedural knowledge advanced by Rittle-Johnson et al. (2001).

A study investigated the maximum acceptable contraction frequencies, work-rest cycles for an isometric intermittent handgrip task as a function of force, posture, and grip span. The grip span of a tool is an important factor to be considered in predicting optimal work, rest cycles for hand grip tasks, while the optimum setting of grip span of the hand tool depends on the required task force level.

In task switching, a response indicated as correct by both task rules is executed more quickly than one for which the rules disagree. This rule-congruency, so far demonstrated unequivocally only in nonspatial tasks, shows that the currently irrelevant task set is kept active. However, in spatial task-switching, rule-congruency could potentially reflect a preexperimental tendency that contributes to a Simon-like effect. In the present study, participants switched between RIGHT-LEFT and UP-DOWN tasks with either a standard key arrangement (e.g., upper key = UP) or a mapping-reversed arrangement (e.g., up = DOWN), which reverses the direction of the potential Simon-like effect but leaves potential rule-congruency effects unchanged. Mapping-reversal did not modulate any other effect, including rule-congruency, and therefore indicated rule-congruency unequivocally. Finally, implications concerning generality versus domain specificity of control processes in task switching are discussed.

The scheduling problem in a single machine with previously assigned fixed jobs is examined. The allocation of remaining time slots without overlapping is discussed.

The scheduling of real-time in minimizing the delays from a single source is examined.

This study investigated the nature of adance preparation for a task switch, testing 2 key assumptions of R. De Jong's (2000) failure-to-engage theory: (a) Task-switch preparation it all-or-none, and (b) preparation failures stem from nonutilization of available control capabilities. In 3 experiments, switch costs varied dramatically across individual stimulus-response (S-R) pairs of the tasks--virtually absent for I pair but large for others. These findings indicate that, across trials, task preparation was not all-or-none but, rather, consistently partial (full preparation for some S-R pairs but not others). In other words, people do not prepare all of the task some of the time, they prepare some of the task all of the time. Experiments 2 and 3 produced substantial switch costs even though time deadlines provided strong incentives for optimal advance preparation. Thus, there was no evidence that people have a latent capability to fully prepare for a task switch.

This article examines how between-individual comparisons influence performance evaluations in rating tasks. The authors demonstrated a systematic change in the perceived difference across ratees as a result of changing the way performance information is expressed. Study 1 found that perceived performance difference between 2 individuals was greater when their objective performance levels were presented with small numbers (e.g., absence rates of 2% vs. 5%) than when they were presented with large numbers (e.g., attendance rates of 985% vs. 95%). Extending this finding to situations involving trade-offs between multiple performance attributes across ratees, Study 2 shotted that the relative preference tar 1 ratee over another actually reversed when the presentation format of the performance information changed. The authors draw upon prospect theory (D. Kahneman & A. Tversky, 1979: A. Tversky & D. Kahneman, 1981) to offer a theoretical framework describing the between-individual comparison aspect of performance evaluation.

Although much has been discovered about relations between self-efficacy and academic achievement, questions remain about links between achievement, the structure of learning tasks, and changes in students' self-efficacy as students engage with a single, complex authentic task. Students' self-efficacy for learning (SEL) and for performance (SEP) was tracked as they worked on well- and ill-structured tasks during their regular class. Students reported higher SEL and SEP for a well-structured task. Moderate achievers reported significantly more difficulty with the ill-structured task. SEP was higher and more stable than SEL, especially in early phases of both tasks. After accounting for overall academic achievement, self-efficacy was a negligible predictor of achievement. Students may perceive various features of each task's structure as difficult, Implications concerning relations among self-efficacy, task structure, and achievement are discussed. Keywords: self-efficacy, self-efficacy for learning, self-efficacy for performance, task structure, secondary students

Byline: V. M. Rusalov (1), M. N. Rusalova (2), E. V. Strel'nikova (2) Abstract: Students (N = 70) were tested for motivation in choosing a profession, namely, for dominance of the subjective value or the attainability of the profession. Dominance of the subjective value showed negative correlations with EEG amplitude characteristics in the low-frequency band and positive correlations in the high-frequency band and, on this evidence, was considered to be associated with processes of brain activation. It was concluded that the motivational factor of the value of a profession is mostly influenced by individual features of temperament, which manifest themselves, in particular, in the general ergicity. The factor of attainability is negatively affected by certain features of the nervous system, especially by the general ergicity. Author Affiliation: (1) Institute of Psychology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia (2) Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 117485, Russia Article History: Registration Date: 06/10/2004

This study investigated students' allocation of responding as a function of task difficulty and type of reinforcement contingency (i.e., accuracy based or time based). Four regular education fourth-grade students were presented with two identical stacks of easy and then difficult math worksheets using a reversal design. Regardless of condition, completing problems from each stack of worksheets was reinforced according to a different contingency; one required correct completion of math problems (accuracy based) and one required on-task behavior (time based). Results suggested that 3 of the 4 students preferred the accuracy-based contingency when given easy material and the time-based contingency when given difficult material. One student allocated more responding to the accuracy-based contingency when given easy problems but did not show a clear preference for either contingency with difficult problems. The implications of these findings for designing reinforcement-based programs for tasks of varying difficulty are discussed. DESCRIPTORS: academic behavior, reinforcement contingency, task difficulty, response allocation

A Task duplication-based scheduling Algorithm for Network of Heterogeneous systems (TANH), with complexity O (V (super2)) that provides optimal results for application represented by Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs), is introduced. The performance of the algorithm is illustrated by comparing the scheduling time with an existing 'Best Imaginary Level scheduling (BIL)' scheme for heterogeneous systems.

Usability evaluation is an increasingly important part of the user interface design process. However, usability evaluation can be expensive in terms of time and human resources, and automation is therefore a promising way to augment existing approaches. This article presents an extensive survey of usability evaluation methods, organized according to a new taxonomy that emphasizes the role of automation. The survey analyzes existing techniques, identifies which aspects of usability evaluation automation are likely to be of use in future research, and suggests new ways to expand existing approaches to better support usability evaluation. Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.1.2 [Information Systems]: User/Machine Systems--human factors; human information processing; H.5.2 [Information Systems]: User Interfaces--benchmarking; evaluation/methodology; graphical user interfaces (GUI) General Terms: Human Factors Additional Key Words and Phrases: Graphical user interfaces, taxonomy, usability evaluation automation, web interfaces

Intelligent machines are defined to be hierarchically intelligent control systems composed of three levels: the organization level, the coordination level, and the execution level. This paper presents an analytical model for the coordination level of intelligent machines, which, together with the established mathematical formulation for the organization level and the well developed control theory for the execution level, completes the first step toward a mathematical theory for intelligent machines. The framework of the coordination level is a tree structure consisting of a dispatcher and a number of coordinators. A new type of transducers, Petri net transducers (PNTs), has been introduced to serve as the basic module in our analytical model. PNTs provide a formal description for the individual processes within the dispatcher and coordinators. The concurrence and conflict among these processes can be represented by PNTs conveniently. Coordination structures are introduced as a formalism for the specification of integration in the coordination level. The task precedence relationship in the coordination process is presented by the Petri nets derived from the coordination structures. These Petri nets also provide us a formal approach of using the concepts and analysis methods in the Petri net theory to investigate the properties of the coordination structures. A case study of modeling an intelligent assembly robotic system has been conducted for the purpose of illustration.

A task help model for a screen design tool with a commercial interface system demonstrates the proposed Scenario-Based Task Help for new computer users to increase their productivity. The online task help analyzes the series of activities the user needs to undergo to achieve a major objective and maps the tasks to user and product interface. Therefore, the system is highly dependent on the selection criteria for such activities.