This study explored how task complexity, writing behaviors (i.e., pausing and revision behaviors), and writing performance (i.e., task completion, coherence and cohesion, language use, and expression and tone) influence and relate to each other. Thirty advanced-level Korean EFL undergraduates completed writing tasks differing in complexity. A combination of keystroke logging and stimulated recall interview was employed. It was found that the simple task group showed a greater number of pauses and revisions related to lower-order writing processes, whereas the complex task group showed longer pauses related to higher-order writing processes. While task complexity had no influence on writing performance, writing behaviors revealed significant relationships with text quality. In the simple task group, pause length and revision were negatively related to writing scores, whereas pause frequency revealed mixed results. In the complex task group, consistent negative relations were found between pausing behaviors and text quality, and fewer revisions were related to better scores in expression and tone.

The Cognition Hypothesis postulates that more cognitively complex tasks can trigger more accurate and complex language production, thereby advancing second language (L2) development. However, few studies have directly examined the relationship between task manipulations and L2 development. To address this gap, this article reviews, via an analytic approach, nine empirical studies that investigated the impact of task complexity on L2 development in the domain of morphosyntax. The studies are categorized into two groups based on if they include learner-learner interaction or a focus on form (FonF) treatment provided by an expert interlocutor. The results indicate that the findings of the studies, albeit partially mixed, tend to support the predictions of the Cognition Hypothesis. More importantly, a further analysis reveals seven key methodological issues that need to be considered in future research: target linguistic domains, different types of FonF, the complexity of the target structure, task types, outcome measures, the use of introspective methods, and the need of more empirical studies and replicable study designs.

We explored whether task complexity, operationalized by the two types of writing prompts, affects EFL high school students’ narrative writing in terms of syntactic complexity, lexical complexity, fluency, cohesion, and text quality. 32 intermediate EFL students who were randomly assigned to two prompt groups completed a written narrative task based on a series of sixteen pictures. Task complexity was operationalized as a bare versus frame prompt. The results indicate that the task complexity had an impact on lexical sophistication measures. The students in the framed prompt group were able to include more sophisticated vocabulary in their narratives than those in the bare prompt group. The findings are discussed in terms of the Limited Attentional Capacity Model in that the students in the bare prompt group might have prioritized meaning rather than form in order to ease attentional overload. The findings of our study could assist teachers in selecting writing prompts that have the potential to elicit the targeted features of writing performance.

The present study examines the effects of manipulating cognitive task complexity on high school English learners’ narrative and persuasive writing. Participants were 156 high school students. They were divided into four groups. Each group was given one of four different types of writing that were classified based on their genres (narrative vs. persuasive writing) and dimensions of task complexity (resource-directing vs. resource-dispersing). All participants completed both simple and complex writing tasks for their assigned type of writing. Participants’ written products were measured in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. The results revealed that increased task complexity, along with the resource-directing dimension, somewhat positively affected the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of both narrative and persuasive writing. However, increased task complexity, along with the resource-dispersing dimension, showed differential effects of cognitive complexity on participants’ written products between the genres. It resulted in decreased scores in fluency and accuracy, and had no significant impact on the complexity of narrative writing. As for persuasive writing, on the other hand, it lowered the fluency, increased the complexity, and had no impact on the accuracy. The pedagogical suggestions drawn from the results are provided along with the limitations of the study.

최근 자동차와 IT기술의 융합으로 차량 내 인포테인먼트 시스템이 운전자에게 편의 및 오락 기능을 제공하며 역할이 중요해지고 있다. 하지만 운전과 인포테인먼트 시스템을 조작하는 것은 동시에 시각 리소스를 요구하는 과제로 과제를 전환하며 수행해야 한다. 따라서 본 연구는 운전 중 인포테인먼트 시스템 조작 상황에서 조작 과제의 난이도와 motor cue가 과제 전환과 운전 주행능력에 미치는 영향과 함께, motor cue의 효과가 조작 과제의 난이도 수준에 따라 차이가 있는지 보고자 하였다. motor cue와 조작 과제 난이도의 효과를 살펴보기 위해 반복되는 숫자가 청크 단위와 일치하는지에 따라 두 종류의 번호를 사용하였으며, 터치 키의 크기로 난이도 수준을 조절했다. 실험에서 참가자들은 모의 주행을 하며 스크린에 번호를 입력하도록 지시받았고, 과제 수행 중 번호 입력시간, 차선 유지능력, 숫자 키 입력 시간 간격과 핸들 움직임을 측정했다. 그 결과, 난이도 수준에 따라 운전 주행 능력과[F(1, 26) = 8.521, p < .001], 번호 입력 시간의 차이가 유의미했고[F(1, 26) = 35.372, p < .0001], 번호 종류에 따른 차이는 나타나지 않았다. 하지만 Incongruent 번호 입력 시, 청크로 구분된 두 숫자를 입력하는 시간의 간격과 핸들 움직임이 크게 증가하였다. 이는 반복된 숫자가 청크로 구분되어도 청크를 무시하고 한 번에 입력하였음을 나타낸다. 종합하면, 다중 과제 상황에서 청크 단위는 motor cue에 의해 상쇄되며 과제 전환 시점을 결정하는 데에 motor cue의 효과가 있음을 시사한다.

This study investigated whether task complexity may affect L2 speaking performance as predicted by the Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2011), and whether the effect of task complexity may interact with individual differences in working memory capacity. A total of twenty Korean advanced-level EFL learners performed two separate picture description tasks, which were different in task complexity along [+/- here and now] dimension. Their working memory was measured by an L1 version of a reading span task. The results showed that there was no significant difference between Here-and-Now task (i.e., a simple task) and There-and-Then task (i.e., a complex task) in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency of English speaking performance, rejecting the prediction of the Cognition Hypothesis. Yet, it found that working memory correlated with accuracy in L2 performance on the complex task, but not on the simple task. This indicates that the effect of individual learners’ working memory capacity is observable only when a task demands a high control of attentional resources. Conversely, when a task is simple, individual differences in working memory capacity do not result in significant differences in L2 speaking performance.

The influence of task complexity on second language (L2) writing performance has been researched near-exclusively in relation to the linguistic complexity of the learners’ written products, while only limited attention has been paid to the online writing processes. In order to fill this gap, the present study focused on the effects of task demands on writing processes as reflected in keystrokes. Forty-four L1 Korean speakers were randomly assigned to either simple or complex condition, and asked to write an argumentative essay. For the simple condition, content support was provided, whereas no such additional information was provided for the complex condition. During the writing task, participants’ entire keystroke loggings were recorded, and analyzed in terms of fluency, pausing, and revision behaviors. The lexical and syntactic complexity of the written products was also analyzed and compared between the two task conditions. The results indicated that greater task demands significantly increased the number of pauses and revisions, having negative influence on fluency. Also, lexical rarity and phrasal complexity decreased under the complex condition. The results are discussed with respect to fuller understanding of the task-based approach to L2 writing.

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has propelled much research into how task type, condition, or demand affects L2 learners’ linguistic performance and language learning. To date, however, TBLT has mainly been researched in connection with learners’ production, while its applicability to L2 reading has largely been unattended to. To fill this gap, the present study explored whether and how cognitive complexity of L2 reading tasks would affect L2 English reading comprehension and learning of target L2 constructions contained in the texts. The study employed a pretest, posttest, delayed-posttest design with two treatment sessions. The target features were 17 English unaccusative verbs and ten pseudowords. Participants included 52 Korean college students learning L2 English who were randomly assigned to either – or + complex condition. Reading comprehension was measured with 14 multiple-choice items for each text, and learning of the target constructions was assessed with a grammaticality judgment test and word form and meaning recognition tests. The results of mixed-effects modeling indicated that increased task complexity had limited effects on reading comprehension scores as well as learning of the target unaccusative verbs. Also, task complexity had significant negative effects on vocabulary form recognition scores in the delayed posttest. The results are discussed in relation to models of task-based learning and L2 reading.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of task complexity on the quality of L2 learners’ argumentative writing using both global measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) and task-specific measures, namely, for conjunctions. A group of 110 Korean high school students in South Korea performed either a simple or complex argumentative writing task. Task complexity was manipulated by +/–reasoning demands and +/–few elements. A set of 110 argumentative essays were analyzed on 6 global measures of CAF and 2 task-specific measures. The results showed that task complexity affected the fluency of the argumentative writings, in that the complex task group produced more fluent writings than the simple group. However, task complexity did not affect accuracy or syntactic complexity of the argumentative writings. In the task-specific measures, task complexity affected neither frequency nor target-like use of conjunctions. These results have pedagogical implications for task design to help learners develop their L2 proficiency.

This study examines the effects of the sequence of increasing task complexity in different modalities on the learning of the English past tense of Korean secondary learners. Robinson’s (2007) Cognition Hypothesis argued that learners pay more attention to grammatical forms in complex tasks than in less complex tasks. He suggested that tasks should be sequenced in such a way that resource-dispersing dimensions are first increased in complexity followed by an increase in the complexity of resource-directing dimensions. However, little empirical research has been done on how tasks are sequenced according to their cognitive complexity and how task modality affects second language development in the sequence. Fifty-four learners were divided into an integrated (writing with oral interaction) task group (EG 1), an oral-only task group (EG 2) and a comparison group (CG). After the sequence of six tasks was completed, one-way ANOVA revealed the EGs outperformed the CG significantly on the posttest. The mean score of EG 1 was the highest, while the improvement rate of EG 2 was the highest among the three groups. It is hoped that this result will contribute to building a solid basis on which practitioners can make decisions about sequencing tasks and implementing task modality.

Measuring task complexity of movement skill is an important factor to evaluate a difficulty of learning and/or imitating a task for autonomous robots. Although many complexity-measures are proposed in research areas such as neuroscience, physics, computer science, and biology, there have been little attention on the robotic tasks. To cope with measuring complexity of robotic task, we propose an information-theoretic measure for task complexity of movement skills. By modeling proprioceptive as well as exteroceptive sensor data as multivariate Gaussian distribution, movements of a task can be modeled as probabilistic model. Additionally, complexity of temporal variations is modeled by sampling in time and modeling as individual random variables. To evaluate our proposed complexity measure, several experiments are performed on the real robotic movement tasks.

반응 복잡성 효과는 수행해야할 동작반응의 복잡성이 증가함에 따라 반응시간이 길어지는 현상으로, 반응시간의 지연이 반응 계획 단계에서의 중추적인 처리과정의 지연에 의한 것이 아니라 복잡한 동작수행과 관련된 운동명령의 신경전달과 근육의 수축과정의 지연에 의한 것이라는 의문이 제기되어 왔다. 본 연구의 목적은 도약 안구 운동을 통해 말초적인 전달과정의 지연효과를 최소화하고 좌우 30도 수평 도약 안구 운동 과제를 통해 도약 안구 운동의 수를 1도약과제에서 4도약과제까지 증가하여 반응 복잡성의 증가에 따른 반응시간과 안구 운동의 운동학적 변인들의 변화를 비교 분석하였다. 대학에 재학중인 10명의 남학생이 반응 복잡성이 다른 4조건(1도약, 2도약, 3도약, 4도약)의 도약 안구 운동을 수행하였고, 매 시행 도약 안구 운동 자료는 EOG를 통해 수집되고 분석되었다. 연구결과, 도약 안구 운동의 수가 증가함에 따라 반응시간이 증가하였으며, 반응 복잡성이 증가함에 따라 반응계획단계에서 반응요소를 계획하는데 소요되는 시간이 증가를 야기하는 반응 복잡성효과를 재확인한 결과이다. 또한 1차 도약안구 운동의 운동학적 변인들(운동시간, 최대속도, 최대속도시간)는 1도약안구 운동과 다른 3조건들 간에 서로 다른 운동학적 수행 패턴을 보여, 도약 안구 운동수의 증가에 따라 단순히 1도약 안구 운동이 반복되는 것이 아니라 더 효율적인 동작으로 재구성되어 발현되는 것으로 나타났다.