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A Context Model Needed for Complex Tasks
Bibliographic data,
abstract,
content links,
references.
Grant, A. S..
A context model needed for complex tasks.
In: Mental Models and Everyday Activities:
Proceedings of the Second Interdisciplinary Workshop on
Mental Models, pp 94--102, Cambridge, England, March 1992.
It is interesting to have models of cognition in everyday activities,
but also important to have models of task activity, because it can
inform the design of tasks, or tools and interfaces for the tasks.
Previous models do account for the structuring of
long-term memory in terms of frames, scripts, MOPs (mental
organization packets), schemata, or similar concepts;
but they do not account for other observed characteristics
of human complex task performance, and in particular
for the way in which humans move between contexts.
Evidence from the study of complex tasks is here
reviewed and discussed in support of these points.
The model presented in outline here uses the term `context'
for the conceptual entity that some features in common with
scripts, frames or schemata, but goes beyond these previous models
in suggesting that the knowledge
necessary for context changing is contained in the context itself,
along with the knowledge that is applied directly in the task,
rather than being controlled by some separate process.
This model has the virtue of pointing towards a reason
why humans' task skill is contextual,
explained in terms of the cognitive demands of performing a task.
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Anderson, J. R. (1989).
A theory of the origins of human knowledge.
Artificial Intelligence,
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Bainbridge, L. (1972).
An Analysis of a Verbal Protocol from a Process Control Task.
PhD thesis, Faculty of Science, University of Bristol, England.
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Bainbridge, L. (1981).
Verbal reports as evidence of the process operator's knowledge.
In: Mamdani, E. H. and Gaines, B. R. (eds),
Fuzzy Reasoning and its Applications,
pp. 343--368. Academic Press, London.
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Bartlett, F. C. (1932).
Remembering.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.
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Grant, A. S. (1990).
Modelling Cognitive Aspects of Complex Control Tasks.
PhD thesis, Department of Computer Science,
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.
Available from the author.
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Laird, J. E., Newell, A., and Rosenbloom, P. S. (1987).
SOAR: An architecture for general intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence,
33: 1--64.
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Prætorius, N. and Duncan, K. D. (1988).
Verbal reports: A problem in research design.
In: Goodstein, L. P., Andersen, H. B., and Olsen, S. E. (eds),
Tasks, Errors and Mental Models,
ch 20. Taylor Francis, London.
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Rasmussen, J. (1986).
Information Processing and Human-Machine Interaction: An
Approach to Cognitive Engineering.
North-Holland, New York.
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Schank, R. C. (1982).
Dynamic memory: A theory of reminding and learning in computers
and people.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.
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Schank, R. C. and Abelson, R. (1977).
Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ.
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Woods, D. D. (1988).
Coping with complexity:
The psychology of human behavior in complex systems.
In: Goodstein, L. P., Andersen, H. B., and Olsen, S. E. (eds),
Tasks, Errors and Mental Models,
pp. 128--148. Taylor & Francis, London.
(c) Copyright Simon Grant.
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