So it may be a stretch, but there is some research from my lab that
may be applicable to this discussion. First some background. The
issue is one of how perceived costs influence strategy selection. I
am not sure if anyone has mentioned it in the context of this thread,
but a key reference here is:
Payne, J. W., Bettman, J. R., & Johnson, E. J. (1993). The adaptive
decision maker. New York: Cambridge University Press.
PBJ showed that decision makers tended to adapt strategies that
traded off effectiveness for effort.
Also, Anderson's work on Rational Analysis:
Anderson, J. R. (1990). The adaptive character of thought. Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Anderson, J. R. (1991). Is human cognition adaptive? Behavioral and
Brain Sciences, 14(3), 471-517.
Strategies or productions are picked according to their expected
value which can be summarized as E = PG - C. Where C is the cost, G
is the value of completing the task, and P is the probability that
the strategy will be successful.
Second -- In work in our lab we have extended some of the above in
two directions. First, we have shown linear tradeoffs between
perceptual-motor vs cognitive effort. Second, in a paper recently
submitted, we interpreted user inventions in HyperCard (successful
inventions as well as unsuccessful ones) as due to an attempt to take
a simple step to immediately reduce a difference rather than go into
a means-ends analysis mode.
An interesting implication of our work is that these "least-effort"
or PG-C considerations seem to be based on local, not global
considerations. That is, least-effort to take the next step, is not
necessarily the same as choosing a path (i.e., a series of steps)
that will lead to a least-effort solution.
Third -- our work can be considered as emphasizing bottom-up
considerations. There are top-down considerations as well. These
would be all of the "good programming practices" that are taught in
the books or acquired thru years of painful experience ("sure this is
easier now, but if I ever have to change this then . . ."). These may
be considered as affecting the value of P in the PG-C equation or
they may simply (?) introduce a meta-layer into the choice of
programming strategies.
Tschuess,
Wayne
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Wayne D. Gray, Professor of Psychology
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