Designing a training tool for imaging mental models

The training process can be conceptualized as the student acquiring an evolutionary sequence of classification-problem solving mental models. For example a physician learns (1) classification systems for patient symptoms, diagnostic procedures, diseases, and therapeutic interventions and (2) interrelationships among these classifications (e.g., how to use diagnostic procedures to collect data about a patient's symptoms in order to identify the disease so that therapeutic measures can be taken. This project developed functional specifications for a computer-based tool, Mental Link, that allows the evaluative imaging of such mental models. The fundamental design approach underlying this representational medium is traversal of virtual cognition space. Typically intangible cognitive entities and links among them are visible as a three-dimensional web that represents a knowledge structure. The tool has a high degree of flexibility and customizability to allow extension to other types of uses, such a front-end to an intelligent tutoring system, knowledge base, hypermedia system, or semantic network

Revisiting peak shift on an artificial dimension: Effects of stimulus variability on generalization

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this record.One of Mackintosh’s many contributions to the comparative psychology of associative learning was in developing the distinction between the mental processes responsible for learning about features and learning about relations. His research on discrimination learning and generalization served to highlight differences and commonalities in learning mechanisms across species and paradigms. In one such example, Wills and Mackintosh (1998) trained both pigeons and humans to discriminate between two categories of complex patterns comprising overlapping sets of abstract visual features. They demonstrated that pigeons and humans produced similar “peakshifted” generalization gradients when the proportion of shared features was systemically varied across a set of transfer stimuli, providing support for an elemental feature-based analysis of discrimination and generalization. Here we report a series of experiments inspired by this work, investigating the processes involved in post-discrimination generalization in human category learning. We investigate how post-discrimination generalization is affected by variability in the spatial arrangement and probability of occurrence of the visual features, and develop an associative learning model that builds on Mackintosh’s theoretical approach to elemental associative learning

Preview Cues: Enhancing Access to Multimedia Content

We describe preview cues, a lightweight mechanism to assist exploration of multimedia content. A preview cue provides a preview of the kind of content/information associated with an area (as opposed to an instance) of a domain. Preview cues associate media files and their meta data with the label of a topic in a domain. A lightweight gesture such as brushing a cursor over a label initiates playback of the preview cue file associated with that label. With these cues, users can preview the type of content associated with an area of a domain in order to decide whether or not that area is of interest for further exploration before having to select it. In this paper we describe the preview cues mechanism. We look at one case study of an implementation of preview cues in the audio domain, and we present the results of a user study of preview cue deployment. We conclude with a discussion of issues for future research

Principled design guidance for the development of computer-based training materials

This study is concerned with the provision of guidance for designers of computer-based training (CBT) materials. Four interrelated principles - immersion, interaction, locative fit, and multiple representations - are discussed. These principles draw upon research into instruction and technology and re-frame and re-interpret established instructional factors in terms of the capabilities of the interactive computer as a training delivery medium. It will be argued that the conjoining of pedagogy and technology in the principles is crucial to the effectiveness of CBT. Furthermore, this study will also argue that the form of the guidance has a direct bearing on its usefulness. The four principles are argued to represent a coherent framework which can raise the awareness of CBT designers on key instructional issues and the ways in which the delivery medium may be used to support them, and provide a resource on which designers may draw.The relevance and effectiveness of the principles (and the issues that they address) are explored through a body of empirical work. This takes the form of two studies: a survey of designers providing comments on the content and expression of the principles and their importance to CBT design; and a series of user trials. The contrasting nature of the studies allows the comments of designers and users to be assessed and compared

The Effect of Developmental Factors on the Use of an Electronic Communication Device.

This study addressed a poorly understood variable of voice output communication aid (VOCA) use, namely mnemonic development. Forty children without disabilities, aged from 49 to 60 months, were required to use an IntroTalker (Prentke Romich Company) to participate in a one-on-one storybook reading task with the investigator. They were provided with sixteen messages to use during a scripted reading of The Three Bears. Children could use a trained verbal elaboration strategy or generate their own methods to retrieve messages. Immediate and delayed responses of children under two training methods were compared, and the contribution of developmental factors, including metamemory, were evaluated. In the control method, Direct Instruction (DI), children learned to retrieve messages via an error-free method including simple repetition of a verbal elaboration mnemonic. In the experimental method, Active Problem Solving (APS), children were first led through a series of steps alerting them to the limitations of non-symbolic retrieval strategies and allowing them to make retrieval errors, thus discovered the relative value of various retrieval strategies. Next, they were taught to retrieve the remaining messages in the same way as the DI children. Children with low metamemory skill were less accurate in their retrieval of messages, and produced more Self-corrected Responses when trained under the APS condition. Children receiving APS training showed an initial retrieval advantage on the first story-retelling immediately following training; however, on the second day retrieval by DI subjects matched APS. It was concluded that DI children experienced a de facto active problem-solving condition on the first day, when they produced many errors, thereby enhancing the value of the verbal elaborations they had been trained to use. Effects of perceptual, semantic and syntactic development, and of conflicts between the canonical and experimental Three Bears script were evident. Although the use of a normally developing population is controversial in the area of augmentative communication, the strategy was found to produce valuable insights into the errors made by children. Overall, the task was easy for most of the children, thereby supporting the use of VOCAs with young children

Supporting multimedia user interface design using mental models and representational expressiveness

This thesis addresses the problem of output media allocation in the design of multimedia user interfaces. The literature survey identifies a formal definition of the representational capabilities of different media.as important in this task. Equally important, though less prominent in the literature, is that the correct mental model of a domain is paramount for the successful completion of tasks. The thesis proposes an original linguistic and cognitive based descriptive framework, in two parts. The first part defines expressiveness, the amount of representational abstraction a medium provides over any domain. The second part describes how this expressiveness is linked to the mental models that media induce, and how this in turn affects task performance. It is postulated that the mental models induced by different media, will reflect the abstractive representation those media offer over the task domain. This must then be matched to the abstraction required by tasks to allow them to be effectively accomplished. A 34 subject experiment compares five media, of two levels of expressiveness, over a range of tasks, in a complex and dynamic domain. The results indicate that expressiveness may allow media to be matched more closely to tasks, if the mental models they are known to induce are considered. Finally, the thesis proposes a tentative framework for media allocation, and two example interfaces are designed using this framework. This framework is based on the matching of expressiveness to the abstraction of a domain required by tasks. The need for the methodology to take account of the user's cognitive capabilities is stressed, and the experimental results are seen as the beginning of this procedure

Virtual acoustics displays

The real time acoustic display capabilities are described which were developed for the Virtual Environment Workstation (VIEW) Project at NASA-Ames. The acoustic display is capable of generating localized acoustic cues in real time over headphones. An auditory symbology, a related collection of representational auditory 'objects' or 'icons', can be designed using ACE (Auditory Cue Editor), which links both discrete and continuously varying acoustic parameters with information or events in the display. During a given display scenario, the symbology can be dynamically coordinated in real time with 3-D visual objects, speech, and gestural displays. The types of displays feasible with the system range from simple warnings and alarms to the acoustic representation of multidimensional data or events

The Impact of Conversational Assistance on the Effective Use of Forecasting Support Systems: A Framed Field Experiment

Forecasting support systems (FSSs) support demand planners in important forecasting decisions by offering statistical forecasts. However, planners often rely on their judgment more than on system-based advice which can be detrimental to forecast accuracy. This is caused by a lack of understanding and subsequent lack of trust in the FSS and its advice. To address this problem, we explore the potential of extending the traditional static assistance (e.g., manuals, tooltips) with conversational assistance provided by a conversational assistant that answers planners’ questions. Drawing on the theory of effective use, we aim to conduct a framed field experiment to investigate whether conversational (vs. static) assistance better supports planners in learning the FSS, increases their trust, and ultimately helps them make more accurate forecasting decisions. With our findings, we aim to contribute to research on FSS design and the body of knowledge on the theory of effective use