ABSTRACT:

Information system developers want to know how their information presentation choices will affect user judgment. Prior research suggests that performance on elementary information processing tasks is enhanced when there is a cognitive fit between the way data are presented and the way they are used. This theory has been applied only to elementary information processing tasks, or judgment strategy has not been manipulated. The aim of this research is to see if cognitive fit theory can be applied to overall judgment strategies. Judgment strategy is the combination of elementary information processing tasks that a decision maker employs to arrive at an overall judgment. Two types of judgment strategies are investigated: (1) a holistic strategy with spatial information processing tasks and (2) an analytic strategy with symbolic tasks. If cognitive fit research applies to overall judgment strategy, then graphs should support holistic judgment strategies better and tables should support analytic strategies better. We obtained results that are consistent with this premise from graduate business students evaluating performance of hypothetical manufacturing plant managers.

Keywords: Cognitive fit, Graphs, Information presentation, Information processing, Judgment strategy, Performance evaluation, Tables

Data Availability: Contact the first author.

The authors wish to thank workshop participants at the University of South Carolina and the 26th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Decision Sciences Institute. Adrian Harrell, Julia Higgs, Robert Leitch, John Reisch, Earl Spiller, Morris Stocks and the reviewers provided very helpful suggestions.