UX Research
Human skill improvement via interface manipulation.
My results demonstrated that an editing support system could be modified to improve user skill development further than they already do. In particular, products that offer editing suggestions but DO NOT implement these edits for the user provide more significant user skill development opportunities. Users provided such systems showed a 27.9% increase in the number of spellings learned compared to users of traditional spell-checking methods.
Tactile interfaces support enhanced learning
I demonstrated that users with touchscreens could be more creative (i.e., generate more words from a set of letters) than those not provided a touchscreen. Moreover, I also demonstrated that this capability extended beyond the use-case: participants that had once had access to the touchscreen interface performed better than those that never had access. This difference was persistent. Even when they no longer had access to the touchscreen, participants that once had touchscreen access remained better at the task.
Determining the difficulty of generative lexical tasks
If word game producers or researchers wish to challenge their users, they should select sets of letters with low productivity and low commonality words. The inverse of this is accurate as well: to provide users with a minimal challenge, producers or researchers should select sets of letters with high productivity and highly common words. Of the two factors, productivity had the most considerable impact on difficulty.
Cognitive Science Research
Mouse Tracking Reveals Knowledge of Multiple Competing Referents During Cross-situational Word Learning
I provided my co-authors insights and guidance on how to set up and run a mouse-tracking study for both adults and children. We were able to produce and publish insightful new research that has helped settle a debate in word-learning literature concerning learning mechanics.
Spatial metaphors of web use
Primary findings from this study include the shift from metaphorical descriptions of motion to direct reports of actions. As users have become more familiar with the web, the language that they use to describe the system has become more specific to the environment.
Religiosity Predicts Evidentiary Standards
Religious participants appear to treat evidence concerning scientific and religious claims with the same weight. Religious participants were likely to require the same amount of disproving evidence to reject a scientific claim or a religious claim. Non-religious participants required much less contrary evidence to reject a religious claim compared to a scientific claim.