Effect of Cognitive Abilities on Crowdsourcing Task Performance

Abstract : Matching crowd workers to suitable tasks is highly desirable as it can enhance task performance, reduce the cost for requesters, and increase worker satisfaction. In this paper, we propose a method that considers workers’ cognitive ability to predict their suitability for a wide range of crowdsourcing tasks. We measure cognitive ability via fast-paced online cognitive tests with a combined average duration of 6.2 min. We then demonstrate that our proposed method can effectively assign or recommend workers to five different popular crowd tasks: Classification, Counting, Proofreading, Sentiment Analysis, and Transcription. Using our approach we demonstrate a significant improvement in the expected overall task accuracy. While previous methods require access to worker history or demographics, our work offers a quick and accurate way to determine which workers are more suitable for which tasks.