Examining the effect of reward structure and system interface on operators' information-processing strategies under time pressure

A prior study found that a receive icon to inform operators when new information had arrived was not effective because as time pressure increased operators increasingly made decisions before, not after, receiving all information. Although it was easy to modify the receive icon so operators could tell if information arrived before or after a decision, we wonder if we could more effectively support operators' information processing strategy by changing their reward structure, not the interface. In particular, we hypothesized that increasing the importance of decision accuracy versus quantity would make operators wait for information and, therefore be able to maintain accuracy under the highest time pressure level even with the old receive icon. A factorial experiment was performed, and that's exactly what we found. The results indicate the importance of considering operators' reward structure, not just their system interface, when supporting operators' information processing strategies under time pressure.