The Experts below are selected from a list of 273 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Adam Rule - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Using Visual Histories to Reconstruct the Mental Context of Suspended Activities
Human–Computer Interaction, 2017Co-Authors: Adam Rule, Aurélien Tabard, Jim HollanAbstract:International audienceResuming suspended activities is fundaMental to knowledge work. As activities grow in complexity or fade from memory, they become increasingly difficult to cognitively resume. Motivated by the efficiency of images for cueing autobiographical memory, we conducted two studies of how visual histories of computer-mediated activity might aid users in restoring the Mental Context of suspended activities. In the first exploratory study we demonstrate that users provided a visual history consisting of small thumbnail images of their desktop can reconstruct detailed Mental Contexts of earlier computer work. In the second observational study we examine methods and cues that web developers, scientific writers, and graphic designers currently use to restore Mental Context. We find that participants from all three professions engage in situated sensemaking, reconstructing Context by generating stories to explain cues in their documents with implicit meaning, such as sudden changes in writing quality or the shape of blocks of code. We identify characteristics of each activity that influence the information, artifacts, and strategies participants used to reconstruct Context. We conclude that visual histories can help users reconstruct Mental Context, but that challenges remain in designing lightweight image-based cues that help users reconstruct Context for a range of activities
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Using Visual Histories to Reconstruct the Mental Context of Suspended Activities
Human-Computer Interaction, 2017Co-Authors: Adam Rule, Aurélien Tabard, James D. HollanAbstract:Resuming suspended activities is fundaMental to knowledge work. As activities grow in complexity or fade from memory, they become increasingly difficult to cognitively resume. Motivated by the efficiency of images for cueing autobiographical memory, we conducted 2 studies of how visual histories of computer-mediated activity might aid users in restoring the Mental Context of suspended activities. In the first exploratory study we demonstrate that users provided a visual history consisting of small thumbnail images of their desktop can reconstruct detailed Mental Contexts of earlier computer work. In the second observational study we examine methods and cues that web developers, scientific writers, and graphic designers currently use to restore Mental Context. We find that participants from all three professions engage in situated sensemaking, reconstructing Context by generating stories to explain cues in their documents with implicit meaning, such as sudden changes in writing quality or the shape of blocks of code. We identify characteristics of each activity that influence the information, artifacts, and strategies participants used to reconstruct Context. We conclude that visual histories can help users reconstruct Mental Context but that challenges remain in designing lightweight image-based cues that help users reconstruct Context for a range of activities.
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CSCW Companion - Thinking in 4D: Preserving and Sharing Mental Context Across Time
Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing Companion - CSCW '16 Companion, 2016Co-Authors: Adam Rule, James D. HollanAbstract:Creative activities are frequently interrupted, making it difficult to maintain complex trains of thought. This paper presents a preliminary study of the knowledge, artifacts, and strategies programmers, writers, and graphic design-ers use to preserve and restore Mental Context across time. Our findings inform the design of resumption aids that might help people share Mental Context both with their future selves and collaborators.
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CogSci - Restoring the Context of Interrupted Work with Desktop Thumbnails.
Cognitive Science, 2015Co-Authors: Adam Rule, Aurélien Tabard, Karen Boyd, James D. HollanAbstract:Knowledge work is frequently interrupted. Interruptions enable collaboration and bring timely information, but they disrupt the fragile Context of ongoing activities. Computers, now ubiquitous in knowledge work, have improved in their ability to track and restore digital Context (documents and files), but they do a poor job of helping users restore Mental Context: the ideas, intentions, and motivations behind their work. Thumbnail images are an efficient way to help computer users re-find documents; we ask if they can also be used to restore Mental Context. We tested how three manipulations to thumbnails of personal computer screenshots impact their ability to help viewers recognize past activities and recall accurate and detailed Context. In a 2-week study we found that thumbnails of portions of the screen need to be larger than thumbnails of the entire screen for successful activity recognition and that static screenshots prompted more accurate Contextual recall than animations.
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Restoring the Context of Interrupted Work with Desktop Thumbnails
2015Co-Authors: Adam Rule, Aurélien Tabard, Karen Boyd, Jim HollanAbstract:Knowledge work is frequently interrupted. Interruptions enable collaboration and bring timely information, but they disrupt the fragile Context of ongoing activities. Computers, now ubiquitous in knowledge work, have improved in their ability to track and restore digital Context (documents and files), but they do a poor job of helping users restore Mental Context: the ideas, intentions, and motivations behind their work. Thumbnail images are an efficient way to help computer users re-find documents; we ask if they can also be used to restore Mental Context. We tested how three manipulations to thumbnails of personal computer screenshots impact their ability to help viewers recognize past activities and recall accurate and detailed Context. In a 2-week study we found that thumbnails of portions of the screen need to be larger than thumbnails of the entire screen for successful activity recognition and that static screenshots prompted more accurate Contextual recall than animations.
James D. Hollan - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Using Visual Histories to Reconstruct the Mental Context of Suspended Activities
Human-Computer Interaction, 2017Co-Authors: Adam Rule, Aurélien Tabard, James D. HollanAbstract:Resuming suspended activities is fundaMental to knowledge work. As activities grow in complexity or fade from memory, they become increasingly difficult to cognitively resume. Motivated by the efficiency of images for cueing autobiographical memory, we conducted 2 studies of how visual histories of computer-mediated activity might aid users in restoring the Mental Context of suspended activities. In the first exploratory study we demonstrate that users provided a visual history consisting of small thumbnail images of their desktop can reconstruct detailed Mental Contexts of earlier computer work. In the second observational study we examine methods and cues that web developers, scientific writers, and graphic designers currently use to restore Mental Context. We find that participants from all three professions engage in situated sensemaking, reconstructing Context by generating stories to explain cues in their documents with implicit meaning, such as sudden changes in writing quality or the shape of blocks of code. We identify characteristics of each activity that influence the information, artifacts, and strategies participants used to reconstruct Context. We conclude that visual histories can help users reconstruct Mental Context but that challenges remain in designing lightweight image-based cues that help users reconstruct Context for a range of activities.
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CSCW Companion - Thinking in 4D: Preserving and Sharing Mental Context Across Time
Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing Companion - CSCW '16 Companion, 2016Co-Authors: Adam Rule, James D. HollanAbstract:Creative activities are frequently interrupted, making it difficult to maintain complex trains of thought. This paper presents a preliminary study of the knowledge, artifacts, and strategies programmers, writers, and graphic design-ers use to preserve and restore Mental Context across time. Our findings inform the design of resumption aids that might help people share Mental Context both with their future selves and collaborators.
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CogSci - Restoring the Context of Interrupted Work with Desktop Thumbnails.
Cognitive Science, 2015Co-Authors: Adam Rule, Aurélien Tabard, Karen Boyd, James D. HollanAbstract:Knowledge work is frequently interrupted. Interruptions enable collaboration and bring timely information, but they disrupt the fragile Context of ongoing activities. Computers, now ubiquitous in knowledge work, have improved in their ability to track and restore digital Context (documents and files), but they do a poor job of helping users restore Mental Context: the ideas, intentions, and motivations behind their work. Thumbnail images are an efficient way to help computer users re-find documents; we ask if they can also be used to restore Mental Context. We tested how three manipulations to thumbnails of personal computer screenshots impact their ability to help viewers recognize past activities and recall accurate and detailed Context. In a 2-week study we found that thumbnails of portions of the screen need to be larger than thumbnails of the entire screen for successful activity recognition and that static screenshots prompted more accurate Contextual recall than animations.
Kenneth A. Norman - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Neurofeedback helps to reveal a relationship between Context reinstatement and memory retrieval.
NeuroImage, 2019Co-Authors: Megan T. Debettencourt, Nicholas B. Turk-browne, Kenneth A. NormanAbstract:Abstract Theories of Mental Context and memory posit that successful Mental Context reinstatement enables better retrieval of memories from the same Context, at the expense of memories from other Contexts. To test this hypothesis, we had participants study lists of words, interleaved with task-irrelevant images from one category (e.g., scenes). Following encoding, participants were cued to Mentally reinstate the Context associated with a particular list, by thinking about the images that had appeared between the words. We measured Context reinstatement by applying multivariate pattern classifiers to fMRI, and related this to performance on a free recall test that followed immediately afterwards. To increase sensitivity, we used a closed-loop neurofeedback procedure, whereby higher classifier evidence for the cued category elicited increased visibility of the images from the studied Context onscreen. Our goal was to create a positive feedback loop that amplified small fluctuations in Mental Context reinstatement, making it easier to experiMentally detect a relationship between Context reinstatement and recall. As predicted, we found that greater amounts of classifier evidence were associated with better recall of words from the reinstated Context, and worse recall of words from a different Context. In a second experiment, we assessed the role of neurofeedback in identifying this brain-behavior relationship by presenting Context images again and manipulating whether their visibility depended on classifier evidence. When neurofeedback was removed, the relationship between classifier evidence and memory retrieval disappeared. Together, these findings demonstrate a clear effect of Context reinstatement on memory recall and suggest that neurofeedback can be a useful tool for characterizing brain-behavior relationships.
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Neurofeedback helps to reveal a relationship between Context reinstatement and memory retrieval
2018Co-Authors: Megan T. Debettencourt, Nicholas B. Turk-browne, Kenneth A. NormanAbstract:Theories of Mental Context and memory posit that successful Mental Context reinstatement enables better retrieval of memories from the same Context, at the expense of memories from other Contexts. To test this hypothesis, we had participants study lists of words, interleaved with task-irrelevant images from one category (e.g., scenes). Following encoding, participants were cued to Mentally reinstate the Context associated with a particular list, by thinking about the images that had appeared between the words. We measured Context reinstatement with fMRI, and related this to performance on a free recall test that followed immediately afterwards. To increase sensitivity, we used a closed-loop neurofeedback procedure, whereby higher levels of Context reinstatement (measured neurally) elicited increased visibility of the images from the studied Context onscreen. Our goal was to create a positive feedback loop that amplified small fluctuations in Mental Context reinstatement, making it easier to experiMentally detect a relationship between Context reinstatement and recall. As predicted, we found that higher levels of neural Context reinstatement were associated with better recall of words from the reinstated Context, and worse recall of words from a different Context. In a second experiment, we assessed the role of neurofeedback in identifying this brain-behavior relationship by presenting Context images again but manipulating whether their visibility depended on neural Context reinstatement. When neurofeedback was removed, the relationship between Context reinstatement and memory retrieval disappeared. Together, these findings demonstrate a clear effect of Context reinstatement on memory recall and suggest that neurofeedback can be a useful tool for characterizing brain-behavior relationships.
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Does Mental Context drift or shift
Current opinion in behavioral sciences, 2017Co-Authors: Sarah Dubrow, Nina Rouhani, Yael Niv, Kenneth A. NormanAbstract:Theories of episodic memory have proposed that individual memory traces are linked together by a representation of Context that drifts slowly over time. Recent data challenge the notion that Contextual drift is always slow and passive. In particular, changes in one's external environment or internal model induce discontinuities in memory that are reflected in sudden changes in neural activity, suggesting that Context can shift abruptly. Furthermore, Context change effects are sensitive to top-down goals, suggesting that Contextual drift may be an active process. These findings call for revising models of the role of Context in memory, in order to account for abrupt Contextual shifts and the controllable nature of Context change.
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A neural signature of Contextually mediated intentional forgetting
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2016Co-Authors: Jeremy R. Manning, Lili Sahakyan, Justin C. Hulbert, Jamal Williams, Luis Piloto, Kenneth A. NormanAbstract:The Mental Context in which we experience an event plays a fundaMental role in how we organize our memories of an event (e.g. in relation to other events) and, in turn, how we retrieve those memories later. Because we use Contextual representations to retrieve information pertaining to our past, processes that alter our representations of Context can enhance or diminish our capacity to retrieve particular memories. We designed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment to test the hypothesis that people can intentionally forget previously experienced events by changing their Mental representations of Contextual information associated with those events. We had human participants study two lists of words, manipulating whether they were told to forget (or remember) the first list prior to studying the second list. We used pattern classifiers to track neural patterns that reflected Contextual information associated with the first list and found that, consistent with the notion of Contextual change, the activation of the first-list Contextual representation was lower following a forget instruction than a remember instruction. Further, the magnitude of this neural signature of Contextual change was negatively correlated with participants’ abilities to later recall items from the first list.
Aurélien Tabard - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Using Visual Histories to Reconstruct the Mental Context of Suspended Activities
Human–Computer Interaction, 2017Co-Authors: Adam Rule, Aurélien Tabard, Jim HollanAbstract:International audienceResuming suspended activities is fundaMental to knowledge work. As activities grow in complexity or fade from memory, they become increasingly difficult to cognitively resume. Motivated by the efficiency of images for cueing autobiographical memory, we conducted two studies of how visual histories of computer-mediated activity might aid users in restoring the Mental Context of suspended activities. In the first exploratory study we demonstrate that users provided a visual history consisting of small thumbnail images of their desktop can reconstruct detailed Mental Contexts of earlier computer work. In the second observational study we examine methods and cues that web developers, scientific writers, and graphic designers currently use to restore Mental Context. We find that participants from all three professions engage in situated sensemaking, reconstructing Context by generating stories to explain cues in their documents with implicit meaning, such as sudden changes in writing quality or the shape of blocks of code. We identify characteristics of each activity that influence the information, artifacts, and strategies participants used to reconstruct Context. We conclude that visual histories can help users reconstruct Mental Context, but that challenges remain in designing lightweight image-based cues that help users reconstruct Context for a range of activities
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Using Visual Histories to Reconstruct the Mental Context of Suspended Activities
Human-Computer Interaction, 2017Co-Authors: Adam Rule, Aurélien Tabard, James D. HollanAbstract:Resuming suspended activities is fundaMental to knowledge work. As activities grow in complexity or fade from memory, they become increasingly difficult to cognitively resume. Motivated by the efficiency of images for cueing autobiographical memory, we conducted 2 studies of how visual histories of computer-mediated activity might aid users in restoring the Mental Context of suspended activities. In the first exploratory study we demonstrate that users provided a visual history consisting of small thumbnail images of their desktop can reconstruct detailed Mental Contexts of earlier computer work. In the second observational study we examine methods and cues that web developers, scientific writers, and graphic designers currently use to restore Mental Context. We find that participants from all three professions engage in situated sensemaking, reconstructing Context by generating stories to explain cues in their documents with implicit meaning, such as sudden changes in writing quality or the shape of blocks of code. We identify characteristics of each activity that influence the information, artifacts, and strategies participants used to reconstruct Context. We conclude that visual histories can help users reconstruct Mental Context but that challenges remain in designing lightweight image-based cues that help users reconstruct Context for a range of activities.
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CogSci - Restoring the Context of Interrupted Work with Desktop Thumbnails.
Cognitive Science, 2015Co-Authors: Adam Rule, Aurélien Tabard, Karen Boyd, James D. HollanAbstract:Knowledge work is frequently interrupted. Interruptions enable collaboration and bring timely information, but they disrupt the fragile Context of ongoing activities. Computers, now ubiquitous in knowledge work, have improved in their ability to track and restore digital Context (documents and files), but they do a poor job of helping users restore Mental Context: the ideas, intentions, and motivations behind their work. Thumbnail images are an efficient way to help computer users re-find documents; we ask if they can also be used to restore Mental Context. We tested how three manipulations to thumbnails of personal computer screenshots impact their ability to help viewers recognize past activities and recall accurate and detailed Context. In a 2-week study we found that thumbnails of portions of the screen need to be larger than thumbnails of the entire screen for successful activity recognition and that static screenshots prompted more accurate Contextual recall than animations.
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Restoring the Context of Interrupted Work with Desktop Thumbnails
2015Co-Authors: Adam Rule, Aurélien Tabard, Karen Boyd, Jim HollanAbstract:Knowledge work is frequently interrupted. Interruptions enable collaboration and bring timely information, but they disrupt the fragile Context of ongoing activities. Computers, now ubiquitous in knowledge work, have improved in their ability to track and restore digital Context (documents and files), but they do a poor job of helping users restore Mental Context: the ideas, intentions, and motivations behind their work. Thumbnail images are an efficient way to help computer users re-find documents; we ask if they can also be used to restore Mental Context. We tested how three manipulations to thumbnails of personal computer screenshots impact their ability to help viewers recognize past activities and recall accurate and detailed Context. In a 2-week study we found that thumbnails of portions of the screen need to be larger than thumbnails of the entire screen for successful activity recognition and that static screenshots prompted more accurate Contextual recall than animations.
Karl-heinz T. Bäuml - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Does Amount of Pre-cue Encoding Modulate Selective List Method Directed Forgetting?
Frontiers in psychology, 2020Co-Authors: Oliver Kliegl, Bernhard Pastötter, Karl-heinz T. BäumlAbstract:Prior work reported evidence that when people are presented with both a relatively short list of relevant information and a relatively short list of irrelevant information, a subsequent cue to forget the irrelevant list can induce successful selective directed forgetting of the irrelevant list without any forgetting of the relevant list. The goal of the present study is to determine whether this selectivity effect is restricted to short lists of information (six items per list), or if the effect generalizes to longer lists (12 items per list). In Experiment 1, we replicate the finding that selective directed forgetting can occur when short lists of relevant and irrelevant information are involved. Going beyond this replication, we show in Experiment 2 that such selectivity can arise both when shorter and when relatively long lists of items are used. The results are consistent with the view that selective directed forgetting can result from the action of a flexible inhibitory mechanism. They are less well in line with the view that selective cues to forget pre-cue information induce a change in participants' Mental Context.
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Category labels can influence the effects of selective retrieval on nonretrieved items
Memory & Cognition, 2020Co-Authors: Michael Wirth, Karl-heinz T. BäumlAbstract:Using lists of unrelated items as study material, recent studies have shown that selective retrieval of some studied items can impair or improve recall of the nonretrieved items, depending on whether the lag between study and selective retrieval is short or long. This study examined whether the results generalize when the items are studied together with their category labels (e.g., bird - magpie ) and the category labels are reexposed as retrieval cues at test (e.g., bird - m___ ), a procedure often used in research on the effects of selective retrieval. Two lag conditions were employed in this study: a short 1-min lag between study and selective retrieval, and a longer 15-min lag that included Mental Context change tasks to enhance the lag-induced Contextual drift. Experiment 1 employed lists of unrelated items in the absence of any category labels and replicated both the detriMental effect (after short lag) and the beneficial effect (after long lag) of selective retrieval. Experiment 1 was identical to Experiment 1 but provided the items’ category labels during both study and retrieval, and Experiment 1 was identical to Experiment 1 but employed a categorized list. In both experiments, selective retrieval impaired recall in both lag conditions, indicating a critical role of category labels for the effects of selective retrieval. The results of the three experiments are consistent with a two-factor explanation of selective retrieval and the proposal that reexposure of category labels during retrieval can reinstate study Context after longer lag.
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How delay influences search processes at test.
Journal of experimental psychology. Learning memory and cognition, 2019Co-Authors: Oliver Kliegl, Tarek Carls, Karl-heinz T. BäumlAbstract:Delay-induced forgetting refers to the finding that memory for studied material typically decreases as the delay between study and test is increased. The results of 3 experiments are reported designed to examine whether this form of forgetting is primarily caused by interference effects or Contextual drift effects when people engage in neutral distractor tasks during the delay. Response latency analysis was used to contrast predictions of the interference and the Contextual drift view of the forgetting. The results demonstrated that prolonged delay between study and test of a list of items reduced both recall rates and mean response latencies. Because mean latency provides a reliable index of the size of people's Mental search set at test, the findings suggest that prolonged delay impeded people's ability to include studied items into the search set. The results also showed that (a) Mental Context reinstatement before test can eliminate this effect, and (b) younger and older adults differ in their susceptibility to interference effects but show comparable delay-induced forgetting. The findings indicate that, with neutral distractor tasks, delay-induced forgetting is primarily mediated by Contextual drift. Such drift reduces people's Mental search set at test and, thus, decreases both recall rates and response latencies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
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List-Method Directed Forgetting after Prolonged Retention Interval: Further Challenges to Contemporary Accounts
Journal of Memory and Language, 2019Co-Authors: Magdalena Abel, Karl-heinz T. BäumlAbstract:Abstract Numerous studies on list-method directed forgetting (LMDF) have shown that people can voluntarily forget information when cued to do so. But the cognitive mechanism(s) behind this form of forgetting are still subject to debate. The present study focused on two explanations of LMDF: selective rehearsal and Mental Context change. Experiment 1 addressed the Context-change account by comparing the persistence of LMDF with that of Context-dependent forgetting. Results showed that LMDF, but not Context-dependent forgetting, was lasting, which is inconsistent with the Context-change account. Experiments 2 and 3 addressed the selective-rehearsal account by examining whether persistence of LMDF depends on the status of (intentionally vs. incidentally) encoded items and the type of distractor activity (demanding vs. undemanding) between study and test. Results showed that LMDF was lasting for both intentionally and incidentally studied items but was absent after an undemanding distractor task, which disagrees with the selective-rehearsal account. The present findings challenge both the Context-change and the selective-rehearsal account as well as a dual-mechanisms view, which assumes a role of both types of mechanisms in LMDF.
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Testing the Context-change account of list-method directed forgetting: The role of retention interval
Journal of Memory and Language, 2017Co-Authors: Magdalena Abel, Karl-heinz T. BäumlAbstract:Abstract People can voluntarily forget previously studied material when cued to do so. Such directed forgetting may arise because the forget cue induces a change in Mental Context, thus causing Context-dependent forgetting. This Context-change account predicts that both Context-dependent forgetting and directed forgetting should be relatively transient and be reduced, if not eliminated, after prolonged retention interval. In each of two experiments, participants studied two lists of items and between study of the lists were asked to remember or forget the first list, or engage in an imagination task. After a short or a prolonged retention interval recall of the first list items was tested. Whereas imagination induced forgetting that was restricted to short retention intervals, the forget cue induced forgetting that was present regardless of retention interval. The finding challenges the Context-change account and indicates that the effects of a forget cue and induced Mental Context change can be nonequivalent.