Cognitive skills performance

During 1961, we dropped some performance fasks and added others. My co-workers and I tried out a battery of six cognitive measures - the so-called Texas Battery developed by Moran and Mefford in 1959. The designers had identified six basic cognitive skills, using factor analysis. To allow repeated administration of their brief (fcee minute) tests while minimizing practice effects, they created 20 equivalent forms for each cognitive skill. 

This preference for performance over learning has tended to be the norm in cognitive models rather than the exception. Most models focus more on the manipulation of symbols than on their acquisition. In fact, acquisition was - and still is - a thorny issue. Few production models have specified the means of adding new information to the knowledge store. Thus, we observe that most models focus on acquisition of cognitive skill, transfer, and development of expertise (see e.g., the various models described in... 

Ring H, Baron-Cohen S, Williams S, Wheelwright S, BuUmore E, Brammer M, Andrew C (1999) Cerebral correlates of preserved cognitive skills in autism. A functional MRl study of Embedded Pigures task performance. Brain 122 1305-1315. 

Figure 63.6 The figure shows cognitive skills in children of women with normal iodine nutrition status at early gestation, versus children of iodine-deficient mothers. Children of iodine-deficient mothers have poor cognitive performance compared to normal ones. CGI, General Cognitive Index.

Wang et al. (1986) postulate that if the relative contribution of the different cognitive skills towards the performance of a human-machine system can be either known or inferred, then the corresponding subjective assessment of these skills can help in the designing cognitive aids for the human. They developed a fuzzy set approach to formulate a multicriteria decision-making problem to determine whether individuals can prioritize cognitive skills considered important for inspection performance. 

The basic premise behind the taxonomy is that the tasks that humans perform can be broken down into basic human skills or atomic tasks (Roth 1992). The taxonomy used by Roth consists of five skill types attention, perception, psychomotor, physical, and cognitive skills. These taxonomic skills are described by Roth as follows ... 

Kotok, D., Kotok, R. and Heriot, J. T. (1977). Cognitive evaluation of children with elevated blood lead levels. Am. J. Dis. Child., 131, 791 Krall, A. R., Pesavento, C., Harmon, S. J. and Packer III, R. M. (1972). Elevation of norepinephrine levels and inhibition of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation in cerebellum of lead-intoxicated suckling rats. Fed. Proc., 31,665 (abstract 2537) Krall, V., Sachs, H., Rayson, B., Lazar, B., Growe, G. and O Connell, L. (1980). Effects of lead poisoning on cognitive test performance. Perceptual Motor Skills, 50, 483... 

The development of automated systems in advanced technology environments such as aviation has resulted in a change in the demands for cognitive skills. However, contemporary assessment and training is primarily orientated towards the acquisition of procedural skills. This approach emphasizes overt behaviour as the basis of performance and has been evident in the establishment of behavioural competencies for the assessment of skills (Seamster, Redding and Kaempf, 1997). The difficulty with this approach is that the appropriateness, or otherwise, of cognitive skills is unlikely to be accurately assessed through inferences that are made on the basis of overt behaviour. 

To validate the relationship between the cognitive complexity of a task and the cognitive skill required to sueeessfully perform that task, a further study will examine the pattern of eue acquisition for tasks fliat are structured to embody a high or low level of cognitive complexity. Cues represent features of an environment that have some meaning or association for flie receiver and may be visual, auditory, olfactory, or tactile in form (Ratcliff and McKoon, 1995). Previous research has identified that an operator s pattern of cue acquisition will vary as a function of the demands of the task (e.g., Bellenkes, Wickens and Kramer, 1997 Wiggins et al., 2002 Underwood, 2005). 

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