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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.

Abstract

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.

Contents

1 Introduction

2 Characteristics of a complex task

3 Other models and their lack of perfect match

SOAR
ACT* and PUPS
MOPs
General points

4 An outline model of human cognitive contexts

Reasons for a structure of medium-sized contexts

5 Implications for computer information systems and HCI

References

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  3. 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.
  4. Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.
  5. 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.
  6. Laird, J. E., Newell, A., and Rosenbloom, P. S. (1987). SOAR: An architecture for general intelligence. Artificial Intelligence, 33: 1--64.
  7. 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.
  8. Rasmussen, J. (1986). Information Processing and Human-Machine Interaction: An Approach to Cognitive Engineering. North-Holland, New York.
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  10. Schank, R. C. and Abelson, R. (1977). Scripts, Plans, Goals and Understanding. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ.
  11. 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.



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