Time Pressure in Real-Time Dynamic Decision Making

This research investigates the impact of time pressure and individual differences on performance and learning in a Real-Time Dynamic Decision Making (RTDDM) task. Our results indicate that individuals with high spatial WM capacity improved their performance in a high time pressure environment, while individuals with low spatial WM capacity did not. Our results also indicate that individuals with high linguistic WM capacity performed worse than individuals with low linguistic WM capacity. These results suggest that in high time pressure tasks, spatial thinking helps decision makers to build more efficient and effective cognitive models of the environment. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results for training and for the design of computer support in RTDDM tasks