Research Methods for HCI:

Cognitive Modelling

BCS HCI Tutorial

1st September, 2008
What is a cognitive model?
 Specification of mental representations,
operations and problem-solving
strategies that occur during execution of
computer-based tasks.
 Can be:
– General description of steps required to
complete a task
– Sophisticated computer simulation of users
performing tasks with computers
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Why build cognitive models?

 Help us develop a precise

understanding of HCI
 Sometimes enable us to make
predictions about performance
 Can be used early on in design as well
as to evaluate existing designs

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Engineering models

 Used to predict aspects of human

performance before users are
introduced to a system
 Evaluate speed and number of
operations required to perform
different tasks

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Engineering models: GOMS

 Goals
 Operators
 Methods
 Selection rules

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Engineering models: KLM

 Keystroke-level model
– Restricted version of GOMS (no G or S!)
– Predicts execution time to perform a task
– All operators have specific execution time
– Time to complete the task = sum of
execution times of all the operators
required to complete the task

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Cognitive Architectures
 Sophisticated and complex programming
environment within which psychological
theory is represented
 Can build models of a user completing a
particular task within the architecture
 The architecture constrains the way in which
this can be done, thus ensuring that the
model complies with existing psychological
theory
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Cognitive Architectures: ACT-R

 Theory of human cognition

 Represents aspects of human memory,
speech, vision, audition & motor
systems
 Built on top of LISP (so it helps if you’re
familiar with that programming
language)

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 Peebles & Cheng (2003)
 an experiment, eye movement study and
cognitive modelling analysis to investigate
the cognitive, perceptual and motor
processes involved in a common graph
reading task using two different types of
Cartesian graph
 Aim: to investigate how graph users’ ability
to retrieve information can be affected by
presenting the same information in slightly
different typesAnna
ofCox,the same class
UCL Interaction Centre
of diagram
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 Experiment
 participants presented with the value of a
“given” variable and required use the graph
to find the corresponding value of a
“target” variable,
– “when the value of oil is 2, what is the value of
gas?”.

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Results

 The RT data showed that the graph

used and the type of question asked
both had a significant effect on the time
it took for participants to retrieve the
answer.

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 Eyetracking data
 In 62.7% of all trials (irrespective of the graph
used or question type being attempted), after
having read the question at the start of a trial,
participants redirected their visual attention to
elements of the question at least once during the
process of problem solving with the graph.

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Hypotheses about what could be
going on
a) Ps initially encode the three question elements
but are unable to retain all of them in working
memory or retrieve them when required due to
the cognitive load involved in solving the
problem,
b) to reduce the load on working memory,
participants break the problem into two sections,
the first allowing them to reach the given
location and the second to then proceed to the
target location corresponding to the solution.

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 What was going on?
 During the process of model development it was
found that on a significant proportion of trials the
model was not able to retrieve question elements
at the later stages of the trial because their
activation had fallen below the retrieval threshold.
(i.e. option a)
 As a consequence new productions had to be
added to allow the model to redirect attention to
the question in order to re-encode the element and
then return to solving the problem.
 This was precisely the behaviour observed in the
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eye movement study.
The numbered circles on the model screen shot indicate the sequence of fixations
produced by the model

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