Few tasks are so new as to require the invention of strategies that have never been used by the task performer. Hence, in many situations, settling on a strategy or set of strategies for performing a task is not so much a matter of learning new strategies as it is learning which strategy, out of a set of already acquired strategies, is best adapted to the current environment. Blocks World is a simple task that has been used to study the tradeoff bnetween interaction-intensive and memory-intensive strategies.

Humans routinely interact with simple information devices, such as watches, PDAs, cell phones, and both physical and electronic calendars. Although infrequently studied, the design and operation of these devices can have significant impacts on how we operate in the world. The Calendar Study is designed to investigate the effects of small costs on performance, as well as the stability of strategy selection during routine, everyday tasks.

Over the years, many researchers have found that humans often exhibit stable, suboptimal behavior. This project is designed to further examine the factors influencing strategy selection in a simple paradigm involving repeatedly choosing between two options.

The goal of MultiWorld is to further integrate cognitive models with the real world. Traditionally, psychologists studying task switching have studied simple laboratory tasks in isolation. This approach has yielded decades of data, but little relevance to the sorts of tasks humans perform routinely. How are we able to perform multiple, complex tasks simultaneously? How do we decide to switch between two tasks? What is the mechanism enabling task switching? MultiWorld seeks to answer these questions by providing a framework for studying multitasking in complex environments. By running tasks and cognitive models on seperate computers, MultiWorld ensures that the dividing line between the two is made explicit. Thus the model sees only what its human counterpart sees.

The ObViS (pronounced like obvious) research project involves the development and validation of measures of visual similarity. We predict that when searching for a particular target object, the similarity of low-level visual features of any given object to the features of the target object will be a better predictor of visual attention than the saliency of the object.

‘Simon’ uses a simple memory game to study the role of visual, auditory and spatial sensory modalities in the cognitive processes of memory and attention.

TRACS is a 'Tool for Research on Adaptive Cognitive Strategies'. It is a simple card game developed by Kevin Burns, and can be played online at http://tracsgame.com. (Additional background information is available at http://mentalmodels.mitre.org.) As in the original TRACS studies, we are using the game to assess people's abilities to keep track of the changing odds throughout the course of a game. By equipping our application with eye-tracking and various optional enhancements we are able to run subtle variations and gather a full range of experimental data. Consistent with our "to understand it, build it" approach, we use computational cognitive modeling techniques to test our theories as to the cognitive mechanisms involved.
Our findings have direct implications for research in memory, embodied cognition, and interactive behavior. In addition, our application will be used in combination with the CogWorks MultiWorld for further research on the effects of cognitive workload.