Modeling the task environment: ACT-R and the lens model

Ever since Gibson proposed the concept of ‘affordances’ in 1979, we have been arguing about the best way to formalize the idea in a way that can allow us to successfully explain behavior. The first approach was to consider them as dispositional properties of task environment which can support skillful perception and action. A more recent approach considers them more broadly as relations between properties of organisms and their environments. This expands the spatial and temporal scope of affordances; we stand in many kinds of relations to our physical but also social and cultural environments. Relational affordances are therefore offered as an ecological way to explain behaviors in these domains. However, these relational affordances do not, as a rule, interact with perceptual media and therefore do not create perceptual information about themselves. This means they cannot be perceived, which in turn means they cannot play any role in an ecological explanation of a behavior. This paper briefly reviews the dispositional vs relational accounts of affordances, explains the problem, and proposes an information-based alternative (building on Golonka, 2015). Affordances are not relational, but fortunately information is, and this is where we should focus our attention.

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The Effect of Relative Performance Information on Effort Allocation and Performance in a Multi-Task Environment

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.1660184 ◽

2010 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

R. Lynn Hannan ◽

Gregory P. McPhee ◽

Andrew H. Newman ◽

Ivo Tafkov

Keyword(s):

Relative Performance ◽

Task Environment ◽

Performance Information ◽

Effort Allocation ◽

Relative Performance Information ◽

And Performance

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Understanding the Relation between Financial Reporting Quality and Audit Quality

Auditing A Journal of Practice & Theory ◽

10.2308/ajpt-51453 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 35 (4) ◽

pp. 1-22 ◽

Cited By ~ 43

Author(s):

Lisa Milici Gaynor ◽

Andrea Seaton Kelton ◽

Molly Mercer ◽

Teri Lombardi Yohn

Keyword(s):

Financial Reporting ◽

Audit Quality ◽

Reporting Quality ◽

Recursive Relation ◽

Financial Reporting Quality ◽

Task Environment ◽

Future Research

SUMMARY A primary goal of both financial reporting research and audit research is to understand the determinants of quality, and researchers in both areas have identified a wide set of variables that enhance or impair quality. In this paper, we define financial reporting quality and audit quality and use a person/task/environment framework to summarize prior findings on the determinants of each. We use this framework to discuss the links between the financial reporting and audit academic literatures and highlight the recursive relation between financial reporting quality and audit quality. Our discussion provides insights and suggestions on how financial reporting and audit researchers can learn from each other to improve our collective understanding of financial reporting and audit quality. Using this framework, we also identify opportunities for future research.

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