Lecture # 1

THE HUMAN
Foundations

• In this part we introduce the fundamental components of an

interactive system: the human user, the computer system itself and
the nature of the interactive process.
• We then present a view of the history of interactive systems by
looking at key interaction paradigms that have been significant.
THE HUMAN

• Information i/o …
• visual, auditory, haptic, movement
• Information stored in memory
• sensory, short-term, long-term
• Information processed and applied
• reasoning, problem solving, skill, error
• Emotion influences human capabilities
• Each person is different
INPUT–OUTPUT CHANNELS

• Person’s interaction with the outside world occurs through

information being received and sent: input and output.
• Input in the human occurs mainly through the senses and output
through the motor control of the effectors.
• There are five major senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.
• the first three are the most important to HCI.
• Similarly there are a number of effectors,
• including the limbs, fingers, eyes, head and vocal system.
• In the interaction with the computer, the fingers play the primary
role,
• through typing or mouse control, with some use of voice, and eye, head and
body position.
How Human Eye Works
How We See Colors
Vision

• Two stages in vision

• physical reception of stimulus

• processing and interpretation of stimulus

• On the one hand the physical properties of the eye and the visual
system mean that there are certain things that cannot be seen by the
human;
• On the other the interpretative capabilities of visual processing allow
images to be constructed from incomplete information.
 There are approximately 120 million rods per eye which
Human Eye are mainly situated towards the edges of the retina. Rods
therefore dominate peripheral vision.
3 types of cone, each sensitive to a different wavelength of light. This allows color vision. The
eye has approximately 6 million cones, mainly concentrated on the fovea, a small area of the
retina on which images are fixated.
The Eye - physical reception

• Mechanism for receiving light and transforming it into electrical

energy
• light reflects from objects
• images are focused upside-down on retina
• retina contains rods for low light vision and cones for colour vision
• ganglion cells (brain!) detect pattern and movement
• X-cells, which are concentrated in the fovea and are responsible for the early
detection of pattern;
• and Y-cells which are more widely distributed in the retina and are
responsible for the early detection of movement.
• The distribution of these cells means that, while we may not be able
to detect changes in pattern in peripheral vision, we can perceive
movement.
Interpreting the signal

• Example: standing on a hilltop viewing the valley

• reflected light from the object forms an upside-down image on the
retina.
• The size of that image is specified as a visual angle

• The visual angle indicates how much of the field of

view is taken by the object.
• The visual angle measurement is given in either degrees
or minutes of arc,
• where 1 degree is equivalent to 60 minutes of arc,
• and 1 minute of arc to 60 seconds of arc.
•Size and Depth
• Visual angle indicates how much of view object
occupies
(relates to size and distance from eye)
• Visual acuity is ability to perceive fine detail
• A number of measurements have been established to test
visual acuity, most of which are included in standard eye tests.
• For example, a person with normal vision can detect a single
line if it has a visual angle of 0.5 seconds of arc. Spaces between
lines can be detected at 30 seconds to 1 minute of visual arc.
These represent the limits of human visual acuity.
• Familiar objects perceived as constant size
(in spite of changes in visual angle when far
away)
Size and Depth

• In fact, our perception of an object’s size remains constant even if its

visual angle changes.
• So a person’s height is perceived as constant even if they move
further from you.
• This is the law of size constancy, and it indicates that our perception
of size relies on factors other than the visual angle.
• Cues like overlapping help perception of size and depth
• The size and height of the object in our field of view provides a cue to
its distance
• A third cue is familiarity: if we expect an object to be of a certain size
then we can judge its distance accordingly.
• Humor in adds: man sticking against a giant bottle
Interpreting the signal (cont)

• Brightness
• subjective reaction to levels of light
• affected by luminance of object
• Luminance is a physical characteristic and can be measured using a
photometer.
• the intensity of light emitted from a surface per unit area in a given direction.
• Contrast is related to luminance: it is a function of the luminance of an
object and the luminance of its background
• Measured by just noticeable difference
• Visual acuity increases with luminance as does
flicker
Interpreting the signal (cont)

• Colour
• made up of hue, intensity, saturation
• Hue is determined by the spectral wavelength of the light
• Approximately 150 different hues can be discriminated by the average person.
• Intensity is the brightness of the color, and saturation is the amount of
whiteness in the color.
• By varying these two, we can perceive in the region of 7 million different
colors
• cones sensitive to colour wavelengths (blue, green
and red)
• blue acuity is lowest
• 8% males and 1% females colour blind
Interpreting the signal (cont)

• The visual system compensates for:

• Movement
• Changes in luminance.

• Context is used to resolve ambiguity

• Optical illusions sometimes occur due to over

compensation
Optical Illusions
The Ponzo illusion is a
geometrical-optical illusion that
was first demonstrated by the
Italian psychologist Mario Ponzo
(1882–1960) in 1911. He suggested
that the human mind judges an
the Muller Lyer illusion
object's size based on its
the Ponzo illusion
background.

. A similar illusion is the Ponzo illusion . Here the top line

appears longer, owing to the distance effect, although both
lines are the same length. These illusions demonstrate that our
perception of size is not completely reliable.
Optical Illusions
An ambiguous shape
Reading

• Several stages:
• visual pattern perceived
• decoded using internal representation of language
• interpreted using knowledge of syntax, semantics, pragmatics

• Reading involves saccades(rapid movements) and fixations

• Perception occurs during fixations
• Word shape is important to recognition
• Negative contrast ( Dark Characters on lighter
background)improves reading from computer screen
Hearing

• Provides information about environment:

distances, directions, objects etc.
• Physical apparatus:
• outer ear – protects inner and amplifies sound
• Pinna and auditory canal
• middle ear – transmits sound waves as
vibrations to inner ear
• inner ear – chemical transmitters are released
and cause impulses in auditory nerve
• Sound: change or vibration in air pressure
• pitch – sound frequency
• loudness – amplitude
• timbre – type or quality
Hearing (cont)

• Humans can hear frequencies from 20 Hz to 15 kHz

• less accurate distinguishing high frequencies than low.

• Auditory system filters sounds

• can attend to sounds over background noise.
• for example, the cocktail party phenomenon.
Touch
• Provides important feedback about environment.
• May be key sense for someone who is visually impaired.
• Stimulus received via receptors in the skin:
• thermoreceptors – heat and cold
• nociceptors – pain
• mechanoreceptors – pressure
(some instant, some continuous)
• Some areas more sensitive than others e.g. fingers.
• Kinesthesis - awareness of body position
• affects comfort and performance.
• For example, for a touch typist, awareness of the relative positions of the
fingers and feedback from the keyboard are very important.
Movement

• Time taken to respond to stimulus:

reaction time + movement time

• Movement time dependent on age, fitness etc.

• Reaction time - dependent on stimulus type:

• visual ~ 200ms
• auditory ~ 150 ms
• pain ~ 700ms

• Increasing reaction time decreases accuracy in the unskilled

operator but not in the skilled operator.
Movement (cont)

• Fitts' Law describes the time taken to hit a screen target:

Mt = a + b log2(D/S + 1)
where: a and b are empirically determined constants
Mt is movement time
D is Distance
S is Size of target

targets as large as possible

distances as small as possible
Memory

There are three types of memory function:

Sensory memories

Short-term memory or working memory

Long-term memory

Selection of stimuli governed by level of arousal.

sensory memory

• Buffers for stimuli received through senses

• iconic memory: visual stimuli
• echoic memory: aural stimuli
• haptic memory: tactile / touch stimuli
• Examples
• “sparkler” trail: vividly at firework displays where moving sparklers leave a
persistent image.
• stereo sound: Echoic memory allows brief ‘play-back’ of information
• Continuously overwritten
Short-term memory (STM)

• Working memory works as Scratch-pad for temporary recall

• rapid access ~ 70ms

• rapid decay ~ 200ms

• limited capacity - 7± 2 chunks

• Here the digits are grouped or chunked. A generalization of the 7± 2
rule is that we can remember 7± 2 chunks
Examples

212348278493202

0121 414 2626

HEC ATR ANU PTH ETR EET

THE CAT RAN UP THE TREE

Long-term memory (LTM)

• Actually everything that we know

• Repository for all our knowledge
• slow access ~ 1/10 second
• slow decay, if any
• huge or unlimited capacity

• Two types
• episodic – serial memory of events
• semantic – structured memory of facts, concepts, skills

semantic LTM derived from episodic LTM

 Long-term Memory
Possible architecture of:
Implicit Memory

Explicit Memory
Motor Skills

Perceptual
Semantic learning Other types
Episodic
Memory Memory
Classical
? Conditioning
Affected by Amnesia
 Some Definitions of Memory

• Declarative memory: Memory that can be verbally expressed,

such as memory for events in a person’s past.
• Episodic memory: Memory of a collection of perceptions of
events organized in time and identified by a particular context
• Semantic memory: A memory of facts and general
information.
• Semantic dementia: Loss of semantic memories caused by
progressive degeneration of the neocortex of the lateral
temporal lobes.
• Non declarative memory: Memory whose formation does not
depend on the hippocampal formation; a collective term for
perceptual, stimulus-response, and motor memory.
Episodic Memory = Relational Memory

• What did you do at home last Wednesday?

• A temporal context (last Wednesday)
• A physical context (home)
• A set of memory events (turkey, annoying parents,
tiredness, watching the game)

A relation between the events and the context

 Stages of Explicit Long-Term Memory
Encoding Storage Retrieval
Acquire Establish a
information via ‘permanent
perceptual system record’ Reactivate the
permanent
record
 Object Representation, based
on activation of perceptual &
motor areas

Stimulus

Perceptual word Episodic

Processes banana Memory
Encoding

In Context:
‘today’
action ‘at home’
shape

location

temporal lobe is the hub that

color relates all object’s properties &
context into an integrated memory
A medio-temporal lobe lesion causes Amnesia!
Long-term memory (cont.)

• Semantic memory structure

• provides access to information
• represents relationships between bits of information
• supports inference

• Model: semantic network

• inheritance – child nodes inherit properties of parent nodes
• relationships between bits of information explicit
• supports inference through inheritance
LTM - semantic network
Models of LTM - Frames

• Information organized in data structures

• Slots in structure instantiated with values for instance of data
• Type–subtype relationships

DOG COLLIE

Fixed Fixed
legs: 4 breed of: DOG
type: sheepdog
Default
diet: carnivorous Default
sound: bark size: 65 cm
Variable Variable
size: colour
colour
Models of LTM - Scripts

Model of stereotypical information required to interpret situation

Script has elements that can be instantiated with values for context

Script for a visit to the vet

Entry conditions: dog ill Roles: vet examines

vet open diagnoses
owner has money treats
owner brings dog in
Result: dog better
pays
owner poorer
takes dog out
vet richer
Scenes: arriving at reception
Props: examination table
waiting in room
medicine
examination
instruments
paying
Tracks: dog needs medicine
dog needs operation
Scripts
• A script represents this default or stereotypical information, allowing
us to interpret partial descriptions or cues fully. A script comprises a
number of elements, which, like slots, can be filled with appropriate
information:
• Entry conditions :Conditions that must be satisfied for the script to
be activated.
• Result: Conditions that will be true after the script is terminated.
• Props: Objects involved in the events described in the script.
• Roles: Actions performed by particular participants.
• Scenes: The sequences of events that occur.
• Tracks: A variation on the general pattern representing an alternative
scenario.
Models of LTM - Production rules

Representation of procedural knowledge.

Condition/action rules
if condition is matched
then use rule to determine action.

IF dog is wagging tail

THEN pat dog

IF dog is growling
THEN run away
LTM - Storage of information

• rehearsal
• information moves from STM to LTM

• total time hypothesis

• Ebbinghaus performed numerous experiments on memory, using himself as
a subject [117]. In these experiments he tested his ability to learn and repeat
nonsense syllables, comparing his recall minutes, hours and days after the
learning process. He discovered that the amount learned was directly
proportional to the amount of time spent learning. This is known as the total
time hypothesis.
• amount retained proportional to rehearsal time
• Distribution of practice effect
• optimized by spreading learning over time
• Post Office workers typing sessions
• Post Office workers were taught to type, those whose
training period was divided into weekly sessions of one
hour performed better than those who spent two or four
hours a week learning (although the former obviously took
more weeks to complete their training).
• This is known as the distribution of practice effect.
• structure, meaning and familiarity
• information easier to remember
LTM - Forgetting
decay
• information is lost gradually but very slowly

interference
• new information replaces old: retroactive interference
• common example of this is the fact that if you change telephone numbers,
learning your new number makes it more difficult to remember your old number.
This is because the new association masks the old.
• However, sometimes the old memory trace breaks through and interferes with
new information. This is called proactive inhibition.
• An example of this is when you find yourself driving to your old house rather than
your new one
so may not forget at all memory is selective …

… affected by emotion – can subconsciously `choose' to forget

LTM - retrieval

recall
• information reproduced from memory can be assisted by cues, e.g.
categories, imagery

recognition
• information gives knowledge that it has been seen before
• less complex than recall - information is cue
 Thinking
Reasoning
deduction, induction, abduction

Problem solving
Reasoning

• Reasoning is the process by which we use the

knowledge we have to draw conclusions or
infer something new about the domain of
interest.
• There are a number of different types of
reasoning: deductive, inductive and abductive.
• We use each of these types of reasoning in
everyday life, but they differ in significant
ways.
Deductive Reasoning

• Deduction:
• Derive logically necessary conclusion from given
premises.
e.g. If it is Friday then she will go to work
It is Friday
Therefore she will go to work.

• Logical conclusion not necessarily true:

e.g. If it is raining then the ground is dry
It is raining
Therefore the ground is dry
Deduction (cont.)
• It is at this point, where truth and validity clash, that
• When
human truth and
deduction logical validity clash …
is poorest.
e.g. Someforpeople
• One explanation this is are
that babies
people bring their world
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We assume a certain
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• If validity rather than truth was preferred, all premises
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explicit.
Inductive Reasoning

• Induction:
• Generalize from cases seen to cases unseen
e.g. all elephants we have seen have trunks
therefore all elephants have trunks.
• Unreliable:
• can only prove false not true

… but useful!

• Humans not good at using negative evidence

e.g. Wason's cards.
 Wason's cards

• A common response to this (was it yours?) is to check

7 E 4 K
the E and the 4.
• However, this uses only positive evidence. In fact, to
test the truth of the statement we need to check
negative evidence: if we can find a card which has an
If a card has a vowel on one side it has an even number on the other
odd number on one side and a vowel on the other we
have disproved the statement. We must therefore check
Is this true?
E and 7.
• (It doesHownotmany
matter
cardswhat
do you is ontothe
need turnother
over toside of the other
find out?
cards: the statement does not say that all even numbers
…. and which cards?
have vowels, just that all vowels have even numbers.)
Abductive reasoning

• reasoning from event to cause

e.g. Sam drives fast when late.
If I see Sam driving fast, assume late.

• Unreliable:
• can lead to false explanations
Problem solving
• Process of finding solution to unfamiliar task using knowledge.
• Several theories.
• Gestalt :The earliest, dating back to the first half of the
twentieth century
• Gestalt psychologists were answering the claim, made by behaviorists, that
problem solving is a matter of reproducing known responses or trial and error.
This explanation was considered by the Gestalt school to be insufficient to
account for human problem-solving behavior. Instead, they claimed, problem
solving is both productive and reproductive.
• problem solving involves both reuse of knowledge and insight.
• productive draws on insight and restructuring of problem
• attractive but not enough evidence to explain `insight' etc.
• move away from behaviourism and led towards information processing
theories
• Reading Maier’s pendulum problem from book
Problem solving (cont.)

Problem space theory

•Newell and Simon proposed that problem solving centers on
the problem space.
•The problem space comprises problem states, and problem
solving involves generating these states using legal state
transition operators.
• heuristics may be employed to select operators
e.g. means-ends analysis
• operates within human information processing system
e.g. STM limits etc.
• largely applied to problem solving in well-defined areas
e.g. puzzles rather than knowledge intensive areas
• One such heuristic is means–ends analysis. In means–ends analysis the
initial state is compared with the goal state and an operator chosen to
reduce the difference between the two.
• For example, imagine you are reorganizing your office and you want to
move your desk from the north wall of the room to the window. Your
initial state is that the desk is at the north wall.
• The goal state is that the desk is by the window. The main difference
between these two is the location of your desk. You have a number of
operators which you can apply to moving things: you can carry them or
push them or drag them, etc.
• However, you know that to carry something it must be light and that your
desk is heavy. You therefore have a new subgoal:
• to make the desk light. Your operators for this may involve removing drawers, and so
on.
Problem solving (cont.)

• Analogy
A• analogical
doctor is mapping:
treating a malignant tumor. In order to
destroy
• novelitproblems
he needs to domain?
in new blast it with high-intensity
rays. However,
• use knowledge these will
of similar alsofrom
problem destroy
similar the healthy
domain
• analogical
tissue mapping the
surrounding difficult if domains
tumor. are semantically
If he lessens the
different
rays’ intensity the tumor will remain. How does
• Skill acquisition
he destroy the tumor?
• skilled activity characterized by chunking
• lot of information is chunked to optimize STM
A general is attacking a fortress. He can’t send all
• conceptual rather than superficial grouping of problems
his men in together
• information as the roads are mined to
is structured more effectively
explode if large numbers of men cross them.
Errors and mental models

Types of error

• slips
• right intention, but failed to do it right
• causes: poor physical skill,inattention etc.
• change to aspect of skilled behaviour can cause slip

• mistakes
• wrong intention
• cause: incorrect understanding
humans create mental models to explain behaviour.
if wrong (different from actual system) errors can occur
Emotion

• Various theories of how emotion works

• James-Lange: emotion is our interpretation of a physiological
response to a stimuli
• Cannon: emotion is a psychological response to a stimuli
• Schacter-Singer: emotion is the result of our evaluation of our
physiological responses, in the light of the whole situation we are in
• Emotion clearly involves both cognitive and physical
responses to stimuli
Emotion (cont.)

• The biological response to physical stimuli is called affect

• Affect influences how we respond to situations

• positive  creative problem solving
• negative  narrow thinking

“Negative affect can make it harder to do even easy tasks; positive affect can
make it easier to do difficult tasks”
(Donald Norman)
Emotion (cont.)

• Implications for interface design

• stress will increase the difficulty of problem solving
• relaxed users will be more forgiving of shortcomings in design
• aesthetically pleasing and rewarding interfaces will increase positive affect
Individual differences

• long term
– gender, physical and intellectual abilities
• short term
– effect of stress or fatigue
• changing
– age

Ask yourself:
will design decision exclude section of user population?
Psychology and the Design of Interactive
System
• Some direct applications
• e.g. blue acuity is poor
 blue should not be used for important detail

• However, correct application generally requires understanding of

context in psychology, and an understanding of particular experimental
conditions

• A lot of knowledge has been distilled in

• guidelines (chap 7)
• cognitive models (chap 12)
• experimental and analytic evaluation techniques (chap 9)
Assignment Section A

• Provide Scripts
• For Visiting Barbar shop
• Restaurant visit with friends
• Phone
• How to store a contact number in different OS in mobile.
Assignments for Section B

• Provide Scripts
• For shopping in a sale
• Restaurant visit for a birthday party.
• Phone
• How to store a contact number in different OS in mobile.