Human Information System

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 Human information processing has become a very
important area in HFE. It may seem surprising that
there was little interest in cognition and human
information processing until 1967, when Ulrich Neisser
published his book on cognitive psychology.

 Today, cognitive psychology and cognitive science are

fundamental to the design of information systems,
including the design of information displays, pervasive
and ubiquitous computing (computers everywhere),
handheld computing, and mobile phones.
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 A traditional approach to human information processing is presented
ON NEXT SLIDE. According to this model, people sense the
environment through seeing and hearing, then make decisions, and
finally act on the decisions.

 There are three processors in this model:

1. A perceptual processor (to see and hear)
2. A cognitive processor (to think)
3. A motor processor (to act)
 The average time to process information in the 3 processors is as
follows: 100 ms for perception; 70 ms for cognition; and 70 ms for
action. These numbers depend upon the task; a complex target with
many details takes a longer time to process than a simple.

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 SALIENCEBIAS

AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC

High probability events are favored

over low probability events.
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AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC

High probability events are favored

over low probability events.

CONFIRMATION BIAS

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 Jens Rasmussen (1983; 1986) was one of the first to formulate a
model of naturalistic decision making. He distinguished between Skill-
Based, Rule-Based, and Knowledge- Based decision making and task
performance .

1. Skill-based decisions behavior

2. Rule Based Decisions
 If situation A, then I do X.
 If situation B, then I doY.
 If situation C, then I do Z.

3. Knowledge-based decisions
 are typical for complex environments and for unfamiliar tasks

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 Understanding human ability of noticing minute
differences in shapes, colors, heights etc can help graphic
designers in designing better interfaces and interactions.

 Perceptual ability to make out differences in objects,

colors, shapes, texts etc influences the cognition and the
interaction efficiency.

 Can we perceive the difference between a line of 10cm

length against a line of 10.05 cm ? Can we perceive the
difference in holding a weight of 10.0 kg against a weight
of 10.05 kg ?

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For an initial stimulus value I ( say 10 cm ) let the increment
threshold for detecting a difference be ΔI ( say 0.05 cm ).

Weber's Law ( E. H. Weber, in 1834 ) states that the ratio of ΔI/I is

constant for a specific measure.

Where
ΔI = Differential threshold I = Initial stimulus intensity K= Weber fraction
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Hick's Law (for William Edmund Hick) or the Hick–Hyman Law
(for Ray Hyman), predicts the time it takes to make a decision in
selecting among possible choices.

The Hick-Hyman Law measures cognitive information capacity.

Given n equally probable choices, the average reaction time T
required to choose among them is approximately.

Hick’s law stipulates that the reaction time is a function of the

number of choices in adecision.

RT=a+b log2N
where RT isreactiontime, N isthenumberofalternatives,andaandbare
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 Hicks Law is applicable in menus and submenu design
of GUI or web interfaces. It helps us in designing the
menu hierarchy and its depth.

 When we have too many choices we need to

cognitively categorize items to reduce the time taken to
select an item at any stage.

 The logarithmic function of Hick’s Law decides the

depth of hierarchy of the menu tree.
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 Experiments show that when participants are
presented with a list of words, they tend to remember
the first few and last few words and are more likely to
forget those in the middle of the list.

 This is known as the serial position effect. The

tendency to recall earlier words is called the primacy
effect; the tendency to recall the later words is called
the recency effect.

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Memory is an person's mental ability to store, retain, and recall
the information.

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