“Wait Short Time” as a Simple and Resource-rational Boost: Theoretical and Empirical Approaches in the Contexts of Speed-accuracy Trade-off

Abstract Many workers today engage in simple judgment tasks (e.g., on crowdsourcing platforms). This has led to a growing need for interventions to boost their judgment accuracy. We proposed the “wait short time” as a simple and resource-rational intervention: Inserting a short waiting time before presenting alternatives without any instructions. The speed-accuracy trade-off posits that longer thinking typically improves accuracy, whereas resource rationality emphasizes the cognitive costs associated with prolonged thinking (e.g., irritation, cognitive conflict) because of humans limited cognitive resources. Therefore, there should be an appropriately short thinking time to achieve workers’ higher accuracy with minimal workload. We investigated the effectiveness of the proposed intervention both theoretically and empirically. The computer simulations demonstrated that, under assumptions of limited cognitive resources, there was an optimal time point at the early stages of trials for maximizing total benefits. The results of behavioral experiments were consistent with the theoretical findings: Providing a waiting time (1s or 2.5s) improved judgment accuracy, but cognitive conflicts between the alternatives increased over time and an unnecessarily long time (2.5s) induced more subjective irritation. Consequently, an appropriate time (1s) could enhance judgment accuracy with less workload. We discuss the implications and limitations of the proposed intervention.