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Lesson#6
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COGNITIVE FRAMEWORKS
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As the aim of this lecture is to introduce you the study of
Human Computer
Interaction, so that after studying this you will be able to:
. Understand the
importance of Cognition
. Understand
different cognitive frameworks in HCI
6.1 Introduction
Imagine trying to drive a car by using just a computer keyboard.
The four arrow keys
are used for steering, the space bar for braking, and the return
key for accelerating. To
indicate left you need to press the F1 key and to indicate right
the F2 key. To sound
your horn you need to press the F3 key. To switch the headlights
on you need to use
the F4 key and, to switch the windscreen wipers on, the F5 key.
Now imagine as you
are driving along a road a ball is suddenly kicked in front of
you. What would you do?
Bash the arrow keys and the space bar madly while pressing the
F4 key? How would
rate your chance of missing the ball?
Most of us would bald at the very idea of driving a car this
way. Many early video
games, however, were designed along these lines: the user had to
press an arbitrary
combination of function keys to drive or navigate through the
game. More recently,
computer consoles have been designed with the user’s
capabilities and demands of the
activity in ming. Much better way of controlling and
interacting, such as through
using joysticks and steering wheels, are provided that map much
better onto the
physical and cognitive aspects of driving and navigating.
We have to understand the limitations of the people to ease
them. Let us see what is
cognitive psychology and how it helps us.
Cognitive Psychology
Psychology is concerned primarily with understanding human
behavior and the
mental processes that underlie it. To account for human
behavior, cognitive
psychology has adopted the notion of information processing.
Everything we see, feel,
touch, taste, smell and do is couched in terms of information
processing. The
objective cognitive psychology has been to characterize these
processes in terms of
their capabilities and limitations. For example, one of the
major preoccupations of
cognitive psychologists in the 1960s and 1970s was identifying
the amount o f
information that could be processed and remembered at any one
time. Recently,
alternative psychological frameworks have been sought which more
adequately
characterize the way people work with each other and with the
various artifacts,
including computers, that they have use. Cognitive psychology
have attempted to
apply relevant psychological principles to HCI by using a
variety of methods,
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including development of guidelines, the use of models to
predict human performance
and the use of empirical methods for testing computer systems.
Cognition
The dominant framework that has characterized HCI has been
cognitive. Let us define
cognition first:
Cognition is what goes on in out heads when we carry out our
everyday activities.
In general, cognition refers to the processes by which we become
acquainted with
things or, in other words, how we gain knowledge. These include
understanding,
remembering, reasoning, attending, being aware, acquiring skills
and creating new
ideas.
As figure indicates there are different kinds of cognition.
The main objective in HCI has been to understand and represent
how human interact
with computers in term of how knowledge is transmitted between
the two. The
theoretical grounding for this approach stems from cognitive
psychology: it is to
explain how human beings achieve the goals they set.
Cognition has also been described in terms of specific kinds of
processes. These
include:
. Attention
. Perception and
recognition
. Memory
. Learning
. Reading, speaking,
and listening
. Problem solving,
planning, reasoning, decision-making.
What goes on in the mind?
perceiving..
thinking..
remembering..
learning..
understanding others
talking with others
manipulating others
planning a meal
imagining a trip
painting
writing
composing
making decisions
solving problems
daydreaming...
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It is important to note that many of these cognitive processes
are interdependent:
several may be involved for a given activity. For example, when
you try to learn
material for an exam, you need to attend the material, perceive,
and recognize it, read
it, think about it, and try to remember it. Thus cognition
typically involves a range of
processes. It is rare for one to occur in isolation.
6.2 Modes of Cognition
Norman (1993) distinguishes between two general modes:
1. Experiential cognition
2. Reflective cognition
Experiential cognition
It is the state of mind in which we perceive, act, and react to
events around us
effectively and effortlessly. It requires reaching a certain
level of expertise and
engagement. Examples include driving a car, reading a book,
having a conversation,
and playing a video game.
Reflective cognition
Reflective cognition involves thinking, comparing, and
decision-making. This kind of
cognition is what leads to new ideas and creativity. Examples
include designing,
learning, and writing a book.
Norman points out that both modes are essential for everyday
life but that each
requires different kinds of technological support.
Information processing
One of the many other approaches to conceptualizing how the mind
works, has been
to use metaphors and analogies. A number of comparisons have
been made, including
conceptualizing the mind as a reservoir, a telephone network,
and a digital computer.
One prevalent metaphor from cognitive psychology is the idea
that the mind is an
information processor.
During the 1960s and 1970s the main paradigm in cognitive
psychology was to
characterize humans as information processors; everything that
is sensed (sight,
hearing, touch, smell, and taste) was considered to be
information, which the mind
processes. Information is thought to enter and exit the mind
through a series of
ordered processing stages. As shown in figure, within these
stages, various processes
are assumed to act upon mental representations. Processes
include comparing and
matching. Mental representations are assumed to comprise images,
mental models,
rules, and other forms of knowledge.
Stage1 encodes information from the environment into some form
of internal
representation. In stage 2, the internal representation of the
stimulus is compared with
memorized representations that are stored in the brain. Stage 3
is concerned with
Encoding Comparison Response
Selection
Response
execution
Input
or
stimuli
Output
or
response
Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4
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deciding on a response to the encoded stimulus. When an
appropriate match is made
the process passes on to stage 4, which deals with the
organization of the response and
the necessary action. The model assumes that information is
unidirectional and
sequential and that each of the stages takes a certain amount of
time, generally
thought to depend on the complexity of the operation performed.
To illustrate the relationship between the different stages of
information processing,
consider the sequence involved in sending mail. First, letters
are posted in a mailbox.
Next, a postman empties the letters from the mailbox and takes
them to central sorting
office. Letters are then sorted according to area and sent via
rail, road, air or ship to
their destination. On reaching their destination, the letters
are further forted into
particular areas and then into street locations and so on. A
major aspect of an
information processing analysis, likewise, is tracing the mental
operations and their
outcomes for a particular cognitive task. For example, let us
carry out an information
processing analysis for the cognitive task of determining the
phone number of a
friend.
Firstly, you must identify the words used in the exercise. Then
you must retrieve their
meaning. Next you must understand the meaning of the set of
words given in the
exercise. The next stage involves searching your memory for the
solution to the
problem. When you have retrieved the number in memory, you need
to generate a
plan and formulate the answer into a representation that can be
translated into a verbal
form. Then you would need to recite the digits or write them
down.
Extending the human information processing model
Two main extensions of the basic information-processing model
are the inclusion of
the processes of attention and memory. Figure shows the
relationship between the
different processes. [3]
In the extended model, cognition is viewed in terms of:
1. how information is perceptual processors
2. how that information is attended to, and
3. how that information is processed and stored in memory.
Encoding
Comparison
Response
Selection
Response
Execution
Memory
Attention
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6.3 Human processor model
The information-processing model provides a basis from which to
make predictions
about human performance. Hypotheses can be made about how long
someone will
take to perceive and responds to a stimulus (also known as
reaction time) and what
bottlenecks occur if a person is overloaded with too much
information. The bestknown
approach is
the human processor model, which models the cognitive processes
of a user
interacting with a computer. Based on the information-processing
model, cognition is
conceptualized as a series of processing stages where
perceptual, cognitive, motor
processors are organized in relation to one another. The model
predicts which
cognitive processes are involved when a user interacts with a
computer, enabling
calculations to be made how long a user will take to carry out
various tasks. This can
be very useful when comparing different interfaces. For example,
it has been used to
compare how well different word processors support a range of
editing tasks.
The information processing approach is based on modeling mental
activities that
happen exclusively inside the head. However, most cognitive
activities involve people
interacting with external kinds of representations, like books,
documents, and
computers—not to mentions one another. For example, when we go
home from
wherever we have been we do not need to remember the details of
the route because
we rely on cues in the environment (e.g., we know to turn left
at the red house, right
when the road comes to a T-junction, and so on.). Similarly,
when we are at home we
do not have to remember where everything is because information
is “out there.” We
decide what to eat and drink by scanning he items in the fridge,
find out whether any
messages have been left by glancing at the answering machine to
see if there is a
flashing light, and so on. [2]
6.4 GOMS
Card et al. have abstracted a further family of models, known as
GOMS (goals,
operations, methods and selection rules) that translate the
qualitative descriptions into
quantitative measures. The reason for developing a family of
models is that it enables
various qualitative and quantitative predictions to be made
about user performance.
Goals
These are the user’s goals, describing what the user wants to
achieve. Further, in
GOMS the goals are taken to represent a ‘memory point’ for the
user, from which he
can evaluate what should be done and to which he may return
should any errors occur.
[1]
Operators
These are the lowest level of analysis. They are the basic
actions that the user must
perform in order to use the system. They may affect the system
(e.g., press the ‘X’
key) or only the user’s mental state (e.g., read the dialogue
box). There is still a
degree of flexibility about the granularity of operators; we may
take the command
level “issue the select command” or be more primitive; “move
mouse to menu bar,
press center mouse button….” [1]
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Methods
As we have already noted, there are typically several ways in
which a goal can be
split into sub goals. [1]
Selection
Selection means of choosing between competing methods [1]
One of the problems of abstracting a quantitative model from a
qualitative description
of user performance is ensuring that two are connected. In
particular, it a has been
noted that the form and contents of GOMS family of models are
relatively unrelated
to the form and content of the model human processor and it also
oversimplified
human behavior. More recently, attention has focused on
explaining:
. Knowledge
Representation Models
How knowledge is represented
. Mental Models
How mental models (these refer to representation people
construct in their
mind of themselves, others, objects and the environment to help
them know
what to do in current and future situations) develop and are
used in HCI
. User Interaction
Learning Models
How user learn to interact and become experienced in using
computer system.
With respect to applying this knowledge to HCI design, there has
been considerable
research in developing:
Conceptual Models
Conceptual models are (these are the various ways in which
systems are understood
by different people) to help designers develop appropriate
interfaces.
Interface Metaphor
Interface metaphors are (these are GUIs that consists of
electronic counterparts to
physical objects in the real world) to match the knowledge
requirements of users.
6.5 Recent development in cognitive psychology
With the development of computing, the activity of brain has
been characterized as a
series of programmed steps using the computer as a metaphor.
Concept such as
buffers, memory stores and storage systems, together with the
type of process that act
upon them (such as parallel verses serial, top-down verses
down-up) provided
psychologist with a mean of developing more advanced models of
information
processing, which was appealing because such models could be
tested. However,
since the 1980s there has been a more away from the
information-processing
framework with in cognitive psychology. This has occurred in
parallel with the
reduced importance of the model human processor with in HCI and
the development
other theoretical approaches. Primarily, these are the
computational and the
connectionist approaches. More recently other alternative
approaches have been
developed that has situated cognitive activity in the context in
which they occur. [3]
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Computational Approaches
Computational approaches continue to adopt the computer metaphor
as a theoretical
framework, but they no longer adhere to the
information-processing framework.
Instead, the emphasis is on modeling human performance in terms
of what is involved
when information is processed rather than when and how much.
Primarily,
computational models conceptualize the cognitive system in terms
of the goals,
planning and action that are involved in task performance. These
aspects include
modeling: how information is organized and classified, how
relevant stored
information is retrieved, what decisions are made and how this
information is
reassemble. Thus tasks are analyzed not in terms of the amount
of information
processed per se in the various stages but in terms of how the
system deals with new
information. [3]
Connectionist Approaches
Connectionist approaches, otherwise known as neural networks or
parallel distributed
processing, simulate behavior through using programming models.
However, they
differ from conceptual approaches in that they reject the
computer metaphor as a
theoretical framework. Instead, they adopt the brain metaphor,
in which cognition is
represented at the level of neural networks consisting of
interconnected nodes. Hence
all cognitive processes are viewed as activations of the nodes
in the network and the
connections between them rather than the processing and
manipulation of
information. [3]
6.6 External Cognition
External cognition is concerned with explaining the cognitive
processes involved
when we interact with different external representations. A main
goal is to explicate
the cognitive benefits of using different representations for
different cognitive
activities and the processes involved. The main one include:
1. externalizing to reduce memory load
2. computational offloading
3. annotating and cognitive tracing.
Externalizing to reduce memory load
A number of strategies have been developed for transforming
knowledge into external
representations to reduce memory load. One such strategy is
externalizing things we
find difficult to remember, such as birthdays, appointments and
addresses.
Externalizing, therefore, can help reduce people’s memory burden
by:
. reminding them to
do something (e.g., to get something for their mother’s
birthday)
. reminding them of
what to do (e.g., to buy a card)
. reminding them of
when to do something (send it by a certain date)
Computational offloading
Computational offloading occurs when we use a tool or device in
conjunction with an
external representation to help us carry out a computation. An
example is using pen or
paper to solve a math problem.[2]
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Annotating and cognitive tracing
Another way in which we externalize our cognitions is by
modifying representations
to reflect changes that are taking place that we wish to mark.
For example, people
oftern cross thinks off in to-do list to show that they have
been completed. They may
also reorder objects in the environment, say by creating
different piles as the nature of
the work to be done changes. These two kinds of modification are
called annotating
and cognitive tracing:
. Annotating involves
modifying external representations, such as crossing off
underlining items.
. Cognitive tracing
involves externally manipulating items different orders or
structures.
Information Visualization
A general cognitive principle for interaction design based on
the external cognition
approach is to provide external representations at the interface
that reduce memory
load and facilities computational offloading. Different kinds of
information
visualizations can be developed that reduce the amount of effort
required to make
inferences about a given topic (e.g., financial forecasting,
identifying programming
bugs). In so doing, they can extend or amplify cognition,
allowing people to perceive
and do activities tat they couldn’t do otherwise. [2]
6.7 Distributed cognition
Distributed cognition is an emerging theoretical framework whose
goal is to provide
an explanation that goes beyond the individual, to
conceptualizing cognitive activities
as embodied and situated within the work context in which they
occur. Primarily, this
involves describing cognition as it is distributed across
individuals and the setting in
which it takes place. The collection of actors (more generally
referred to just as
‘people’ in other parts of the text), computer systems and other
technology and their
relations to each other in environmental setting in which they
are situated are referred
to as functional systems. The functional systems that have been
studied include ship
navigation, air traffic control, computer programmer teams and
civil engineering
practices.
A main goal of the distributed cognition approach is to analyze
how the different
components of the functional system are coordinated. This
involves analyzing how
information is propagated through the functional system in terms
of technological
cognitive, social and organizational aspects. To achieve this,
the analysis focuses on
the way information moves and transforms between different
representational states
of the objects in the functional system and the consequences of
these for subsequent
actions.[3]
References:
[1] Human Computer Interaction by Alan Dix
[2] Interaction Design by Jenny Preece
[3] Human Computer Interaction by Jenny Preece |
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