Coordination of Cognitive Activity during Group Performance

摘要决策群体的成员往往可以接触到不同的信息，而讨论的目的之一就是汇集成员的独特知识。如果成员的独特信息的组合将揭示一个更好的决策选择，那么汇集信息就显得尤为重要。然而，先前的工作表明，讨论往往集中在共同持有的知识上，而群体有可能忽视由他们的集体知识支持的选项。这个项目的实证工作考察了知识分布和任务需求的感知如何影响信息处理和沟通方式。特别令人感兴趣的是隐性协调的过程，即群体成员根据感知到的任务需求调整他们对信息的选择、排练和交流，以获得不同程度的信息多样性。这种协调可以基于对其他人获取信息的直接了解，也可以基于对其他人过去在类似任务中所做的工作的了解。据推测，某些类型的任务（集体回忆、想法产生、智力问题）将鼓励信息输入的多样性，而其他类型的任务（判断任务）将促进输入的统一性。我们还假设，对回忆准确性的关注可能会促进信息采样的冗余，以提供社会验证。研究发现，在决策过程中，群体倾向于关注所有成员共同持有的信息，而忽略了并非所有成员共享但可能导致更好决策的信息。通过提高我们对独特信息可能被共享的条件的理解，这项研究将提供与提高群体决策质量相关的知识。因此，它将对工业和政府中的各种倡议产生影响，这些倡议强调了基于团体或团队可获得的最佳信息做出决策的重要性。这些举措的核心目标是赋予那些独特地了解可用于改进流程和程序的关键信息的人权力，让他们畅所欲言并发挥作用。拟议的研究将有助于为这种提高工人生产率的尝试提供坚实的基础。

9410584 Stasser ABSTRACT Members of decision-making groups often have access to different information, and one aim of discussion is to pool members' unique knowledge. Pooling information is particularly important if the combination of members' unique information will reveal a superior decision alternative. However, previous work shows that discussions tend to focus on commonly-held knowledge, and groups risk overlooking an option supported by their collective knowledge. This program of empirical work examines how perceptions of knowledge distribution and task demands affect information processing and communication styles. Of particular interest is the process of tacit coordination whereby members of a group adjust their selection, rehearsal and communication of information to obtain varying degrees of informational diversity depending on perceived task demands. This coordination can be based on direct knowledge of others' access to information or on acquired knowledge of what others have done on similar tasks in the past. It is hypothesized that some types of tasks (collective recall, idea generation, intellective problems) will encourage diversity of informational input whereas other types (judgmental tasks) will promote uniformity of input. It is also hypothesized that concerns about recall accuracy may promote redundancy of informational sampling in order to provide social validation. It has been found that, in the process of decision making, groups tend to focus on the information that is commonly held by all members, ignoring information that is not shared by all but that could lead to a better decision. By advancing our understanding of the conditions under which unique information is likely to be shared, this research will provide knowledge relevant to improving the quality of decision making in groups. As such, it will have implications for various initiatives in industry and government that have emphasi zed the importance of basing decisions on the best information available from groups or teams. At the heart of these initiatives is the goal of empowering people who are uniquely aware of crucial information that could be used to improve processes and procedures, getting them to speak up and make a difference. The proposed research will help to provide a sound basis for such attempts to enhance worker productivity.