Relationship between Cognitive Styles and Users’ Task Performance in Two Information Systems

摘要

Studies have shown that cognitive styles have someimpacts on user performance in various types of systems.The current study focused on the effects of cognitive styleson users’ information-seeking task performance betweenan information visualization system and a genericinformation system. Thirty-two graduate studentsparticipated in a controlled laboratory experiment. Each ofthem completed an extended cognitive style analysis -wholistic analytic test (Extended CSA-WA test) oncognitive style, and then conducted eight informationsearch tasks, four analytical and four aspectual, in one oftwo systems: a text-based system, Web of Science, or avisualization system called CiteSpace. Resultsdemonstrated that users’ cognitive styles showed effect ontask performance. The Wholistic-Analytic (WA) ratioobtained from the CSA-WA test was shown to besignificantly correlated with result correctness foranalytical tasks. Users with lower WA ratios were alsofound to have significant lower result satisfaction foranalytical tasks than for aspectual tasks. Also, we foundsignificant system effect on users’ search performance.These results indicate that cognitive style is an importantfactor affecting users’ performance, so is system interfacedesign. Research in both areas provides valuable indicationfor future information system design.