Human Computer Interaction: Lecture 1: Introduction
Human Computer Interaction: Lecture 1: Introduction
Human Computer Interaction: Lecture 1: Introduction
CEN 3721
Lecture 1: Introduction
Debra Lee Davis, M.S., M.A., Ph.D
Intro to Human-Computer Interaction
What is HCI?
Study of interaction between people and computers
The intersection of computer science, behavioral
science, design, ergonomics, and other fields of study
Goal of HCI: Improve the interactions between users
and computers
Design systems that minimize barriers between the
human cognitive model of what they want to
accomplish, and the computer’s understanding of the
user’s task
Source: MIND: Introduction to Cognitive Science 2nd edition, by Paul Thagard
Human-Computer Interaction (cont)
What do we need to study for successful HCI?
Cognitive science: how the mind works; how do we learn;
how much can we easily remember; what is
pleasant/unpleasant; what motivates/demotivates people;
perceptions
Ergonomics of sight, hearing, and motion: how do we look
at screens, how do we interact with them
Physics of sight, hearing, motion, color
Cultural differences: shapes, colors, and images with
cultural Meanings
Demographic differences: age, gender, physical
abilities/disabilities
Technology: input/output modalities
Human-Machine Interaction
Human Factors: Study of human factors looks at the
design of objects that humans use or interact with
Engineering mantra in the past: “Form-Fit-Function”
Form: shape, size, dimensions, mass, or visual parameters
which uniquely characterize an item
Fit: the ability to physically interface or interconnect with or
become an integral part of another item or assembly
Function: the action(s) that it is designed to perform
Is it still used today?
Yes! (NASA, US Armed Forces, Many large corporations, etc.)
There is still a lot of really bad designs
Cognitive Science: Studying the Mind
Why study the mind?
Computers can be made more intelligent by reflecting on
what makes people intelligent
How does the mind work? What about the brain? What’s
the difference?
Cognitive Science: the science that explains how people
accomplish various kinds of thinking
Knowledge in the mind consists of Mental
Representations
Mental procedures operate on mental representations to
produce thought and action
Different kinds of mental representations foster different
kinds of mental procedures
Cognition
Cognition – from Latin base cognitio – “know
together”
The collection of mental processes and activities
used in perceiving, learning, remembering,
thinking, and understanding and the act of using
those processes
Cognitive Processes
Learning and Memory
Thinking and Reasoning (Planning,
Decision Making, Problem Solving ...)
Language
Vision-Perception
Social Cognition
Emotion
Dreaming and Consciousness
Cognitive Processes - How do we
perceive the world?
Perception is biased by experience
What letter is ?
http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/DimplePimple/DimpleOrPimple.html
How many of
you saw this?
Design Implications
Understand our cognitive capabilities and
propensities
Avoid ambiguity
Be consistent
Know who your users are
Understand context
Understand user goals
Disciplines in Cognitive Science
Computer Science- Artificial Intelligence
Neuroscience
Psychology - Cognitive Psychology -
Developmental Psychology – Social Psychology
Philosophy
Linguistics
Anthropology, Education
Cognitive Science
Central hypothesis of cognitive science: Thinking can
best be understood in terms of representational structures
in the mind and computational processes that operate on
those structures (Thagard)
required for the rule to hold (If P then Q. Not Q, therefore Not P)
Turning over the B is irrelevant to the rule
Turning over the 4 is irrelevant to the rule
Watson’s Selection Task
People have less difficulty with this problem if given in
context
Suppose the cards have information about whether
individuals are in a bar on one side, and numbers on
the other side indicating their age
Rule to be tested: If a person is in the bar, then he/she
is 21 years of age or older
Approaches to Modeling the Mind
6 main approaches to modeling the mind:
Logic
Rules
Concepts
Analogies
Images
Neural connections
Rules
Rules are if-then structures
Similar to conditional logic, but rules are more
applicable to the real world
General information about the world: Students are
overworked. If x is a student, then x is overworked.
How to do things: If you register early, then you will get
the courses you want
Linguistic regularities: If a sentence has a plural subject,
then it has a plural verb
Rules
Rules can represent real-world goals
If you want to go home
and you have the bus fare,
then you can catch a bus.
Forward reasoning with the rule simulates backward
reasoning
You go home
if you have the bus fare
and you catch a bus.
Widely used Expert Systems
E.g., financial services, medical diagnostics, etc.
Approaches to Modeling the Mind
6 main approaches to modeling the mind:
Logic
Rules
Concepts
Analogies
Images
Neural connections
Concepts
Concepts are representations of typical entities, and are
not strict definitions
Concepts are associated with default inheritance in
hierarchies
Views of the nature of concepts are often described as
frame , script and schema
Frames (Minsky) - conceptual structures containers with
default values
Shank and Abelson showed that a great deal of our social
knowledge consists of scripts (e.g., how to do something)
Schemas (Piaget) - cognitive framework or concept that
helps organize and interpret information (e.g., dog, horse)
Concepts
Concepts can be innate, or formed from
experience, from rules, or by combining other
concepts we already have
Innate: basic physical concepts of objects and
behavior; ex. Playing “peek-a-boo” with babies
Learned: child learns to distinguish one type of
animal from other types of animals
In language, concepts are represented by words
and phrases that involve a whole conceptual
system
“Barking up a tree”, “Beat around the bush”, etc.
Approaches to Modeling the Mind
6 main approaches to modeling the mind:
Logic
Rules
Concepts
Analogies
Images
Neural connections
Analogies
Analogical thinking: dealing with a new
situation by adapting a similar familiar situation
There are numerous computational models for
analogical reasoning
Also called case-based reasoning, used in artificial
intelligence
Cognitive science itself uses analogies: models the
computer to explain how the mind works
Can be a fertile source of creative designs
George de Mestral invented Velcro after observing how
burrs stuck to his dog
Reverse engineering is used to figure out how to make
an analogous product
Approaches to Modeling the Mind
6 main approaches to modeling the mind:
Logic
Rules
Concepts
Analogies
Images
Neural connections
Images
Human thinking involves pictorial representations
that are different from verbal ones
Mental imagery:
How do you get from your home to FIU?
Images can be visual or non-visual:
Sensory images such as taste and smell
Tactile images: What does a baby’s skin feel like?
Motor images: How do you slam-dunk a basketball?
Emotional images: How did you feel when…? How
would you feel if…?
Images
Vision: easy for humans, but extracting information
from millions of pixels and understanding that
information is very difficult for computers
Optical illusions and cognitive illusions
Necker cube: Is the opening at the top, or in the front?
http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/colourPerception/colourPerception2.html
Vision – how we see color
Some people have color-blindness
Most common: red/green
Neural connections
Neural Connections
Physical brain contains neurons which
signal each other through contacts at
specialized points called synapses
Computational approaches emphasize the
importance of connections
Neural networks
Parallel distributed processing
Many cognitive tasks are understood computationally
in terms of processing that simultaneously satisfies
numerous constraints
Challenges for Cognitive Science
CRUM has many shortcomings. It does not
address:
Emotion
Consciousness
Physical Body (movement, hormonal and chemical
influences, etc.)
Influence of our physical environment
CRUM also does not
The mind is a dynamic system, not a computational
system
Humans are innate social creatures