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This paper stresses the importance of cognitive as well as attitudinal perspectives in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). It looks at the cognitive requirements on support for the driving task, and presents lessons learned from the DRIVE and PROMETHEUS programs.

This article presents empirically based research on the use of future technology for crisis management. In particular, it sets out to challenge ideas of future technology by contrasting them with examples from current practice with new, high-tech systems in emergency rescue centers and military command and control environments. The following three dichotomies are singled out: to start with, that between commitment and information storage;secondly, that between silence and transparency; and finally, that between mimetic representation and interpretation of representa- tions. Our research points to a contradiction between current system design for crisis management systems and actual work practice. Generally speaking, it is suggested that the information technology is becoming both a burden and a saver.

The aim of the present paper is to study users' perception of computers and human beings as advice givers in problem-solving situations. It will be asked if people's self-confidence and their perception of the advice vary depending on the origin of advice. Two studies showed somewhat different results. In the first study, people were given advice either by a (putative) computer or by a human being. Their self-confidence did not vary with the origin of the advice, but with the correctness of their own answer as well as of the advice. The perception of this advice did not differ for the two situations. Their general trust in computers was, however, much less than their trust in human beings. In the second study, the subjects had to attribute advice to a computer or a human being, without being told from whom the advice emanated. For Swedish subjects, the ratings showed consistently higher attributions to human beings regarding knowledge and explanation value of advice and higher attributions to computers regarding trust and understanding. For Indian subjects, humans always received the higher attributions. It was concluded that people's perception of computers seems to be related both to existing attitudes and to their experience of the advice given. Knowledge in the domain seems to be an important factor influencing the perception of the computer as trustworthy.

Several situations in modern working life imply that people have to cooperate in order to handle dynamic systems. The work is distributed in several respects; people work with different tasks and have different expertise, they are often geographically distributed and they work at different times or cover different time scales. The activities are often time critical and cooperation has to be efficient. The problems involved in these situations have great economical and societal impacts. Approaches to the problems require expertise in several domains.The objectives of the workshop was to identify key features of collaborative process management and to identify critical needs in the domain of collaborative process management.

This article presents an overview of different approaches to the study of how people learn computers as tools. The varieties of learning most relevant for computer learners and also mostly discussed by human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers are transfer, construction of mental models, and learning by doing. Transfer from prior knowledge is a well-developed theory within HCI. Empirical data show that quantitative predictions of positive transfer from prior knowledge can be made for simple tasks. The occurrence of negative transfer can be predicted, but effects of prior knowledge that conflict with the material to be learned cannot be covered by a simple transfer theory. It is generally acknowledged that users develop mental models by interacting with a system. However, the exact nature of these models are difficult to capture empirically, since mental models have to be inferred from users' behaviour. In normal use, people seem to have difficulty talking about their mental models. People express their mental models mainly when their expectations are violated. It seems relevant to support the forming of adequate mental models by instruction, but the effects of such educational models are not clear-cut. Several factors influence the comprehension and use of the models given. People do not learn very efficiently by doing, because they have difficulty in choosing alternative actions, observing outcomes, and interpreting them. To conclude, users of computer tools mostly learn as a result of performing a task and do not focus on learning the computer system per se. This implies that learning new aspects of a computer tool is more similar to problem solving than to intentional learning.

This paper aims at studying the microstructure of computer user's actions when learning a wordprocessing system. Latencies for different actions, i.e. identifying task, planning method, selecting command, typing argument, closing command and evaluating result, during the performance of editing tasks were registered. It was found that the learning curves for latencies for all actions except identifying task, could be fitted by a power function, with a power constant around 0.90. The fit was good and the constants similar for two different commands (delete and insert). Also for the different actions observed the power constants were similar, although the curves started at very different points, ranging from 4.31 sec. to 21.72 sec. Further, a model was proposed for basic operations behind the observed actions. The model proposes a sequencial procedure, where planning and recalling precede action. This model was tested against two different commands and was found valid for all data on the 2% level for the delete command and on the 8% level for the insert command. The model was also tested for individual subjects, where it was found that it was adequate for at least 80 percent of the subjects in three out of four cases tested. A closer study of the model fit suggested that the recall of a command was often performed in parallel with the planning of a method. Three subjects refuted the model by reflecting after their actions instead of before as proposed by the model.

We investigated a recently introduced office automation system at Swedish Telecom. In a first study, where 275 users answered an inventory, the users indicated that they found the system useful, b ...

While the potential benefit of additional measurement tools and techniques has been recognized in numerous domains, many questions remain about what to measure and how to get meaningful measurements. Although the majority of researchers seem to agree that user interaction metrics are helpful, the forms of these metrics causes considerable debate. The relationship between humans and computers (HCI) provides a rich area of study from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. Results from HCI research can contribute to theories of human behavior during complex tasks and often the results can be applied to the design of computer systems. An objective in coordinating this mini-track is to encourage a variety of papers that address the need for enhanced, nontraditional measures of performance to evaluate how people use interactive computer systems. Contributions to this mini-track include a wide range of topics as well as evaluation metrics. The first set of papers concerns the evaluation of student learning. Tsaganou, Cavoura and Grigoriadou present a methodology for the experimental construction of a student model of historical text comprehension that was based on a model of comprehension of historical narration (MOCOHN). They conduct an experimental study of students' text comprehension that demonstrated the effectiveness of their proposed student model. Chou employed content analysis to investigate the patterns of student to student interactions in distance learning environments. Vick, using experience gained in face to face classes, judges collaborative knowledge construction using goal-based scenarios in a synchronous computer-mediated communication situations. The second set of papers relies on physiological measurements to assess either skills or mental processes. Serra and Muzio explore the challenges of designing software to assist in the rehabilitation of people who have suffered traumatic brain injuries. They discuss suggestions for ways in which software can minimize the detrimental effects of impaired cognitive functions. Because of the unique characteristics of their patient population, the researchers employ an informal evaluation method and adapt their software to the patients needs. Ark, uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) as a tool to understand the cognitive ability of mental rotation. She summarizes findings from recent mental rotation studies and discusses the possible confounds between the reported results. King explores consistencies of eye-movement patterns by building a neural network and using statistics to predict eye movement behavior in different searching tasks. The final two sets of papers involve guidelines for web based materials and the software architecture needed to support web based data collection. Sutcliffe proposes a three-phase model for web site evaluation. He defines usability as a trade-off between increasing the user's motivation and the costs of usability errors. His proposed heuristics for assessing the attractiveness of web user interfaces contrast the web sites of three airlines. The Nordbottens analyze the use of a national statistical web-database. They have collected one years worth of data to show how people use web data bases. Yatim studies the disorientation problems people have using WWW environments. She uses a measurement based on a psychological model of the disorientation problem and finds a task dependent relationship between the time users take and the disorientation they experience. Stelovsky and Aschwanden discuss how

The need for information about recycling and garbage disposal is increasingly expressed. The research perspective implemented in this study provides the information designer with a set of questions regarding the information context. This study concerns three contexts: inner context, close context and external context. It was found that informants consider the close and the external context as the most important for promoting desired recycling behaviour.

This text represents a comprehensive guide to research in HCI, and hopes to be essential reading for all researchers, designers and manufacturers who need to keep abreast of developments in HCI.

How can people get advice from a knowledge system? This question has got two aspects: one concerned with how a knowledge system can be designed to provide advice, the other concerned with how people perceive advice given.

— Psychological understanding in 150 children, 6, 8, and 12 years old, was studied by the following tasks: (1) Single affective perspective-taking, where the child had to name the emotion evoked in the main person by a described situation; (2) Double affective perspective-taking, where the child had to name the emotion ascrib-able to another person interacting with the main person, i.e. shift perspectives; (3) The child had to explain another person's behavior without any cues whatsoever; (4) The child had to explain another person's behavior and cues were provided. With very few exceptions, occurring mostly in the youngest group, the children answered with appropriate emotions in both the single and the double affective perspective-taking tasks. Explanations obtained in the task without cues were categorized according to criteria derived from Piaget's descriptions of cognitive development. The developmental differences found correspond well to differences in children's conceptions of the physical world. In the task with cues, the older children were found to take more cues into account and to be able to combine these more adequately than the younger.

This contribution describes an interdisciplinary approach to the problem of applying psychological knowledge about the human end-user of an application system to the design of the user interface. To this end, relevant concepts from the domain of human factors from the domain of systems design had to be related to each other. Several description methods and representational languages had to be defined for the mental model and the conceptual model of the system on the one hand, and for the user interface and application interface on the other. The different representations had to be mapped onto those applied in the other domain. The resulting set of methods and tools enables an interdisciplinary team to describe the conceptual model of an existing application system, to define a user interface for this application that is acceptable from a human factors point of view, and to construct the actual interface in order to test whether this enables the user to interact with the system in a more comfortable way.

— Two empirical studies are presented, investigating the effect of readers' world knowledge on comprehension of a text (assimilation effect) and the effect of the reading of the text on readers' knowledge of the world (accommodation effect). The definition ‘knowledge of the world’ is here restricted to a part, represented by the readers' beliefs. 46 junior college students and 11 university students served as subjects. The results regarding assimilation showed that the average subject in both studies interpreted the text to have a meaning more similar to his own beliefs than was actually the case. As to accommodation, the junior college students' own beliefs changed in the direction of the text, whereas the university students' own beliefs became even more adamant in opposition to the text.

Metacomprehension is defined as readers' evaluations of their performance on a task, involving inferences derived from a text. In two studies metacomprehension was related to characteristics of the inferences required, in terms of 1) amount of information to be kept in long-term memory (Study 1), 2) amount of information to be kept in short-term memory (Study 2) and 3) existence of negatives (Study 2). In the first study, 41 psychology students read a text and afterwards judged 1) the correctness of a set of pragmatic inference statements, and 2) their confidence in being correct or the difficulty of judging each statement. In the second study, 81 high-school students read a text and simultaneously judged 1) the correctness of a set of logical inference statements and 2) their confidence in being correct and the difficulty of judging each statement. In both studies, metacomprehension was not significantly correlated with actual performance. The results indicate that one important source of metacomprehension consists in information processing load. In Study 1, long-term memory requirements represent this load, in Study 2, the existence of negatives.

Conditional reasoning is studied by assuming that subjects reason according to logical rules, while understanding premises in different ways, depending upon the circumstances. The process of understanding will lead to an internal propositional model of the premises and the task which can be more or less closed. In a closed model alternative antecedents and consequents are disregarded. This is not the case in an open model. Two studies which employed constructed conditional reasoning tasks with several premises were used to explore this hypothesis. In the first, performance i in a judgement task was studied. Results showed that the subjects judged the conversion of an implication to be true to a significantly greater extent when premises were consistent with a closed model than when they were not. In the second, the reasoning process was investigated in a conclusion task with a thinking aloud instruction. Several different interpretations of the premises were found. So, for instance, negatives often were transformed to a positive form, either directly or by invoking alternatives within the text. Both these interpretations lead to a closed model.

Abstract. The development of a representational framework, based on Moran's Command Language Grammar, for constructing adaptive computer systems is the main topic of this paper. A model of the user interface is developed of which two aspects are discussed: the mental model in the mind of the user and the perceptual model on the side of the machine. Cognitive style and personality factors are considered in their relation to the development of the mental model. The concept of metacommunication is analysed and discussed on all levels of Moran's CLG.

The current paper analyses how human factors aspects and system design aspects may co-operate in the design of a particular application, i.e. electronic mail systems. A review of research on the experience of electronic mail systems is presented, as well as a pilot study covering the experience of mail systems in different user groups. The users were found to differ mainly in terms of the tasks they performed and wanted to perform. It is therefore suggested that a task analysis is essential in system design. Current practice on task analysis is presented, which shows that a more detailed task analysis is needed to be useful. In order to achieve flexibility, the subtasks found should be designed in a modular way. Here the system designer will need different supports. To facilitate co-operation between end-users and system designers some kind of communication support is also suggested.

The problem-solving aspect of reading was studied by a thinking-aloud procedure. A model was developed, describing the information attended to, the thought operation used, and the result derived. Four main operations were identified: Reading, Evoking, Interpreting, and Comparing. A coding system, based upon this model, was developed. Its interrater reliability was between 0.86 and 0.92. This system was used to study the effect of reading purpose. An experimental group was instructed to apply a text concerning creativity to the problem of inducing constructive learning at the university. A control group was assigned reading with no particular purpose in mind. The experimental group used the Interpreting operation more often. Also, the Comparing operation, applied to a comparison between the text and the subjects' own knowledge, less often resulted in disagreement. Thus, the coding system is detailed enough to reflect differences in thought processes.