A Quantitative Investigation into the Design Trade-offs in Decision Support Systems

Users frequently make decisions about which information systems they incorporate into their information analysis and they abandon tools that they perceive as untrustworthy or ineffective. Decision support systems - automated agents that provide complex algorithms - are often effective but simultaneously opaque; meanwhile, simple tools are transparent and predictable but limited in their usefulness. Tool creators have responded by increasing transparency (via explanation) and customizability (via control parameters) of complex algorithms or by improving the effectiveness of simple algorithms (such as adding personalization to keyword search). Unfortunately, requiring user input or attention requires cognitive bandwidth, which could hurt performance in time-sensitive operations. Simultaneously, improving the performance of algorithms typically makes the underlying computations more complex, reducing predictability, increasing potential mistrust, and sometimes resulting in user performance degradation. Ideally, software engineers could create systems that accommodate human cognition, however, not all of the factors that affect decision making in human-agent interaction (HAI) are known. In this work, we conduct a quantitative investigation into the role of human insight, awareness of system operations, cognitive load, and trust in the context of decision support systems. We conduct several experiments with different task parameters that shed light on the relationship between human cognition and the availability of system explanation/control under varying degrees of algorithm error. Human decision making behavior is quantified in terms of which information tools are used, which information is incorporated, and domain decision success. The measurement of intermediate cognitive variables allows for the testing of mediation effects, which facilitates the explanation of effects related to system explanation, control, and error. Key findings are 1) a simple, reliable, domain independent profiling test can predict human decision behavior in the HAI context, 2) correct user beliefs about information systems mediate the effects of system explanations to predict adherence to advice, and 3) explanations from and control over complex algorithms increase trust, satisfaction, interaction, and adherence, but they also cause humans to form incorrect beliefs about data

Constitutivism

A brief explanation and overview of constitutivism

Philosophy of action

The philosophical study of human action begins with Plato and Aristotle. Their influence in late antiquity and the Middle Ages yielded sophisticated theories of action and motivation, notably in the works of Augustine and Aquinas.1 But the ideas that were dominant in 1945 have their roots in the early modern period, when advances in physics and mathematics reshaped philosophy

Evidence-Based Alignment of Pathology Residency With Practice II: Findings and Implications.

This article presents findings from a 4-year series of surveys of new-in-practice pathologists, and a survey of physician employers of new pathologists, assessing how pathology graduate medical education prepares its graduates for practice. Using the methodology described in our previous study, we develop evidence for the importance of residency training for various practice areas, comparing findings over different practice settings, sizes, and lengths of time in practice. The principal findings are (1) while new-in-practice pathologists and their employers report residency generally prepared them well for practice, some areas-billing and coding, laboratory management, molecular pathology, and pathology informatics-consistently were identified as being important in practice but inadequately prepared for in residency; (2) other areas-autopsy pathology, and subspecialized apheresis and blood donor center blood banking services-consistently were identified as relatively unimportant in practice and excessively prepared for in residency; (3) the notion of a single comprehensive model for categorical training in residency is challenged by the disparity between broad general practice in some settings and narrower subspecialty practice in others; and (4) the need for preparation in some areas evolves during practice, raising questions about the appropriate mode and circumstance for training in these areas. The implications of these findings range from rebalancing the emphasis among practice areas in residency, to reconsidering the structure of graduate medical education in pathology to meet present and evolving future practice needs

Evidence-Based Alignment of Pathology Residency With Practice: Methodology and General Consideration of Results.

Few medical specialties engage in ongoing, organized data collection to assess how graduate medical education in their disciplines align with practice. Pathology educators, the American Board of Pathology, and major pathology organizations undertook an evidence-based, empirical assessment of what all pathologists need to learn in categorical residency. Two challenges were known when we commenced and we encountered 2 others during the project; all were ultimately satisfactorily addressed. Initial challenges were (1) ensuring broad representation of the new-in-practice pathologist experience and (2) adjusting for the effect on this experience of subspecialty fellowship(s) occurring between residency and practice. Additional challenges were (3) needing to assess and quantify degree and extent of subspecialization in different practice settings and (4) measuring changing practice responsibilities with increasing time in practice. We instituted annual surveys of pathologists who are relatively new (<10 years) in practice and a survey of physician employers of new pathologists. The purpose of these surveys was to inform (1) the American Board of Pathology certification process, which needs to assess the most critical knowledge, judgment, and skills required by newly practicing pathologists, and (2) pathology graduate medical education training requirements, which need to be both efficient and effective in graduating competent practitioners. This article presents a survey methodology to evaluate alignment of graduate medical education training with the skills needed for new-in-practice physicians, illustrates an easily interpreted graphical format for assessing survey data, and provides high-level results showing consistency of findings between similar populations of respondents, and between new-in-practice physicians and physician-employers