Manuscript Editing Task: A Routine Cognitive Skill

摘要

The paper presents an information-processing theory of how a user of an interactive computer-based text-editing system corrects a marked-up manuscript, this task being an example from a larger class of tasks called Routine Cognitive Skills. Based on a detailed protocol of a 20 minute manuscript-editing session, ten models differing with respect to generality and descriptive detail are examined as to the account they give of the time to perform the task and the sequence of user operations. No really preferred level of description was found, all models giving a satisfactory first-order account. Further, all models performed about the same in a zero-parameter prediction of new but similar data. A quantitative and qualitative characterization of the manuscript-editing task as a routine cognitive skill is provided by the models and the chronometric data, with perhaps the most important feature emerging being the cyclic 'unit task' structure of the behavior.