A Human Factors Approach to File Storage and Retrieval
Keith Michael Alfano · 2007
The question of whether people can directly retrieve or must compute an answer or solution to a question or problem has been studied in a number of problem-solving domains. The purpose of the present research was to extend this question into the realm of file retrieval on the personal computer (PC). Which cognitive strategy, memory or search, contributes most heavily to navigation decisions made by PC users as they seek for target files? In Experiment 1, the nodes of two seven-level, balanced binary trees were populated with folder and file names, such that one tree made logical, hierarchical sense, while the other was nonsensical. In Experiment 2, participants stored and retrieved files in those trees, using exclusively memory, exclusively search, or a combination thereof, depending on the condition to which they were randomly assigned. While the speed of search-based traversal decisions increased as function of tree depth, memory speeds displayed no such distance-to-goal sensitivity. Conversely, the accuracy of search-based traversal decisions was consistently high across tree levels, whereas the accuracy of memory was deplorable, particularly at deeper tree levels. Interestingly, when both memory and search were available, traversal decisions were both faster and more accurate than those made when only one of the two cognitive strategies was available. These findings can, in part, be explained in terms of a choice model and/or race-horse model. ( en )