Designing interfaces to encourage more intensive and effective cognitive processing

Patrick, John; Morgan, Phillip; Tiley, Leyanne; Smy, Victoria; Seeby, Helen

Abstract

Cognitive engineering aims to provide operators with immediate access to as much relevant information as possible. However, this can encourage display-based strategies that do not involve committing information to memory. To overcome this problem, a somewhat counterintuitive method is discussed, based upon the theory of soft constraints [1], that involves delaying access to some critical information by one or two seconds. This design technique induces a more planful and memory-based strategy that can improve recall, develop more planning behavior, improve problem solving, and protect against the negative effects of interruption. Furthermore, we provide some preliminary results that this more memory-intensive strategy can be trained through past experience with high access cost and then used in situations where access cost is minimal. This was the case when only half of the training trials involved a higher access cost. Further research is needed to ascertain how long training effects last and what are the ideal training regimes for different types of task.

Citation

Patrick, J., Morgan, P., Tiley, L., Smy, V., & Seeby, H. (2014, June). Designing interfaces to encourage more intensive and effective cognitive processing. Paper presented at The 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Crete, Greece

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: The 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction
• Conference Location: Crete, Greece
• Start Date: Jun 22, 2014
• End Date: Jun 27, 2014
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2014
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 255-264
• Keywords: cognitive engineering, display design, information access cost, adaptive cognition
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/826037
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07515-0_26
• Additional Information: Additional Information : Best Paper Award: 11th International Conference on Engineering Psychology and Cognitive Ergonomics.; Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : Engineering Psychology & Cognitive Ergonomics: Lecture Notes in Computer Science