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In recent years, the increasing concern about the labour market implications of technological change has led economists to look in more detail at the structure of work content and job tasks. Incorporating insights from other traditions of task analysis, in particular from the labour process approach, as well as from recent research on skills, work organisation and occupational change, in this paper we propose a comprehensive and detailed taxonomy of tasks. Going beyond existing broad classifications, our taxonomy aims at connecting the substantive content of work with its organisational context by answering two key questions: what do people do at work and how do they do their work? For illustrative purposes, we show how our approach allows a better understanding of the impact of new technologies on work, by accounting for relevant ongoing transformations such as the diffusion of artificial intelligence and the unfolding of digital labour platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative studies on paper and pencil– and computer-based tests principally focus on statistical analysis of students' performances. In educational assessment, comparing students' performance (in terms of right or wrong results) does not imply a comparison of problem-solving processes followed by students. In this paper, we present a theoretical tool for task analysis that allows us to highlight how students' problem-solving processes could change in switching from paper to computer format and how these changes could be affected by the use of one environment rather than another. In particular, the aim of our study lies in identifying a set of indexes to highlight possible consequences that specific changes in task formulation have, in terms of task comparability. Therefore, we propose an example of the use of the tool for comparing paper-based and computer-based tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotional cause identification (ECI) is an important task for emotion analysis, aiming to identify the causes behind a certain emotion expressed in the text. Most of the previous studies are restricted to the clause-level binary classification, which have ignored an important fact that not all words in the clause are useful cause information for people to express emotions. In this work, we propose a new task: emotion-cause span extraction (ECSE), which is capable of obtaining more accurate and effective emotion causes. Inspired by recent advances in using joint learning approaches to ECI, we propose a novel joint learning framework for emotion-cause span extraction and span-based emotion classification so as to better address the ECSE task. Taken as the default backbone network, the Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) is used to encode multiple words and serve contextualized token representations. Furthermore, we also propose a multi-attention mechanism with emotional context awareness and a relative position learning mechanism on word-level, which is able to further capture the mutual interactions between the emotion clauses and candidate spans. According to the experimental results on a benchmark emotion cause corpus, it proves the reliability of the ECSE task and the effectiveness of our approach. In addition, through an in-depth analysis of traditional ECI task by converting ECSE into the clause-level binary classification task, we achieve the best performance among the systems in comparison, which further demonstrates the feasibility of the new ECSE task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the relationship between numerical and spatial processing and reading direction, conducting conceptual replications of the Shaki et al. (Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 16(2): 328–331, 2009) parity task and the Mathieu et al. (Cognition 146: 229–239, 2016, Experiment 1) simple addition (e.g., 3 + 2) and subtraction (e.g., 3 − 2) task. Twenty-four left-to-right readers (LTR) and 24 right-to-left readers (RTL) were tested. The response time (RT) analysis of the parity task presented a robust spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect (left-side response advantage for smaller numbers and right-side advantage for larger numbers) for LTR but not RTL readers. In the arithmetic task, the three problem elements (e.g., 3 + 4) were presented sequentially with the second operand displaced slightly to the left or right of fixation. RTL but not LTR readers presented a RT advantage for subtraction relative to addition with a right-shifted second operand compared to it being left-shifted. This is consistent with a spatial bias linked to native reading direction. For both reading-direction groups, effects of the left vs. right side manipulation in the arithmetic or parity task did not correspond to parallel effects in the other task. The results imply that the parity-based SNARC effects and side-related effects in cognitive arithmetic are not equivalent measures of space-related processes in cognitive number processing and likely reflect distinct mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to hand shaping, previous studies have shown that subjects adapt placement of individual digits to object properties such as its weight and center of mass. However, the extent to which digit placement varies based on task context is unknown. In the present study, we investigated where subjects place their digits on a bottle when the upcoming task (lift versus pour) and object content (i.e., amount of liquid: empty, half, and full) were manipulated. Our results showed that subjects anticipated both the upcoming task and content by varying digit placement when grasping the bottle prior to the onset of manipulation. Specifically, subjects increased the vertical distance between the thumb and index finger for pouring but not for lifting. This larger moment arm might have been established to decrease the amount of force required to tilt the bottle. Content also affected digit placement: the digits were placed higher and were wrapped more around the bottle with increasing content. This strategy may maximize grip surface contact, and hence grasp stability. These findings extend previous research showing that grasp planning not only takes place at a macroscopic level (whole-hand position relative to an object), but also at the level of individual digit placement. This finer level of control appears to be sensitive to the expected mechanical properties of the object and how these may affect grasp stability throughout the upcoming manipulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In previous studies of task switching and of the right-left prevalence effect, researchers have used a procedure in which the stimulus on each trial occurs in one of four quadrants, and responses are made by pressing one of two diagonally arranged response keys. Across these studies, discrepant effects of cuing interval have been reported. These discrepancies need clarification because cue-based preparation effects are frequently interpreted as reflecting cognitive control processes. In Experiment I, we compared performance with display formats used by Meiran (1996; Meiran, Chorev, & Sapir, 2000; small display, cues located at sides of quadrants and displayed until response) to study task switching and by Proctor and colleagues (Proctor, Koch, & Vu, 2006; large display, cues located at center of display and shown until target onset) to study right-left prevalence. We found a decrease in task- switch cost with increasing cuing interval with the Meiran display, but not with the Proctor display, but the right-left prevalence effect was of similar size for the two display formats and was relatively unaffected by cuing interval. To determine the basis of the discrepant task-switch results, we used small and large displays in Experiments 2 and 3, respectively, with cue type and cue offset varied. With the side cues, the task-switch cost decreased in all cases at the longer cuing interval, but with the centered cues, it decreased only when the display size was small. Thus, the effects of cuing interval on switch costs are sensitive to variations of display characteristics, whereas cuing interval and display characteristics have little influence on the right-left prevalence effect, suggesting that prevalence effect is due to processes that are independent from those producing the switch cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Switch costs in task switching are often assumed to reflect the strengthening of task-related associations. Recently, we provided evidence that committing an error leads to the strengthening of the wrong task (Steinhauser & Hübner, 2006). In the present study, we report how error-induced control compensates for the effects of error strengthening. We hypothesized that, although error detection cannot prevent an error from being strengthened, it initiates processes that suppress the negative consequences of error strengthening on subsequent trials. Because error-induced control is known to operate slowly, we predicted that a compensatory effect should be observable only for slow responses. In three task-switching experiments, these predictions were confirmed by distributional analyses. The results extend our understanding of the interplay between procedural learning and executive control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One class of multiple-system models of category learning posits that within a single category-learning task people can learn to utilize different systems with different category representations to classify different stimuli. This is referred to as stimulus-dependent representation (SDR). The use of SDR implies that learners switch from subtask to subtask as trials demand. Thus, the use of SDR can be assessed via slowed response times, following a representation switch. Additionally, the use of SDR requires control of executive attention to keep inactive representations from interfering with the current response. Subjects were given a category learning task composed of one- and two-dimensional substructures. Control of executive attention was measured using a working memory capacity (WMC) task. Subjects most likely to be using SDR showed greater slowing of responses following a substructure switch and a greater correlation between learning performance and WMC. These results provide support for the principle of SDR in category learning and the reliance of SDR on executive attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we consider the potential of multimedia cases as tools for teacher professional development. Specifically, we examined online and face-to-face discussions that occurred within groups composed of pre-service mathematics teachers, in-service mathematics teachers, mathematicians, and mathematics teacher educators. Discussions within these heterogeneous groups tended to focus on issues of classroom implementation of the tasks shown in the multimedia case. Secondary foci of discussion included task characteristics and appropriateness of tasks for engaging students in thinking about mathematical concepts and processes. Analysis of contributions to discussions across group member type revealed differences that suggest that the variety of backgrounds and experiences of group members can blend in ways that support rich and critical discussions of mathematics, teaching, and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]