Model Human Processor and GOMS
From IEOR 170 Spring 2007
Required Readings
- The Human Information Processor by Card, Moran, Newell. The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction, Chap 2.1 only (i.e. the first 11 pages).
Discussions
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[edit] Timothy Manglicmot 19:24, 13 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor"
Although this article discusses "the Model Human Processor" in more detail than I think is necessary for this class, it's high level topics give a useful framework for considering mental processes in design. The article began by dividing the model human processor into two categories but only specifically talking about one: memories and processors. While reading the part about the Perceptual System I couldn't help but associate its key principles to another conecpt learned in class, namely psychophysics. Both concepts talk about how something is visualized or heard in the real world and how that gets interpreted in our minds. After reading that part the article talks about the motor system and how the cognitive system serves as a segueway between the motor system and the Perceptual System. Though these parts were interesting to read, I couldn't help but think while reading the article that several concepts discussed so far in this course have similar names in other sciences and disciplines. For example, the concept of the Attractiveness Bias is very similar to a concept discussed in IEOR 171 about Liking; and this is just one of many concepts I can think of. That being said, I think that the way people organize information in this world is very poorly designed. I feel as though I am re-learning concepts and just assigning them different names, thus wasting valuable space in my mind I could have used to learn other things.
[edit] Esha Datta 21:44, 13 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor"
I thought that the description of the Model Human Processor was very interesting as I had never thought of the cognitive process in that type of a way before. I think it would be especially interesting to be able to take advantage of this information in design and I would like to see some examples of how this might be done. Chunking of information is a technique that is already taken advantage of, such as in the design of phone numbers. I also thought that it was interesting how information could be more readily accessed if it was associated with something in the long term memory. I can't think of an example of that, but it would be interesting to see how it could be utilized. The other fact that I found incredibly interesting was that there is no erasure from long term memory and that you just need the correct associations to find these memories.
[edit] Anar Joshi 22:49, 13 March 2007 (PDT)
“The Model Human Processor”
The Model Human Processor is a model used to describe human behavior. It is split up into three parts: the perceptual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system. In the cognitive system, things are processed in the “Working Memory” and the “Long-term Memory”. “Long-term Memory” is a subset within “Working Memory” and has activated elements called chunks. Chunks are essentially abstract expressions that user’s organize into units based on their “Long-term Memory”. An example that they gave was the following sequence: “CBSIBMRCA”. This sequence is said to be easily remembered by the average American college sophomore, because they chunk it into things they know (“CBS”, “IBM”, “RCA”). It is interesting that a specific audience have similar interpretations of a sequence. The insight depicted in this example can be valuable when considering designs for target market sectors.
[edit] Brian Loo 22:59, 13 March 2007 (PDT)
“The Model Human Processor”
This article provided an interesting perspective on the human process system of memory and processors. I thought Figure 2.1 was a great visual picture aid of what the reading was describing as I got confused in linking the different parts of each system through out the reading. Furthermore, I knew some kind of process like this occurs but I never actually sat down and thought about it like this and it is just fascinating how our brain operates with our visual and auditory systems. The most fascinating part I thought about the processor was the whole discussion on long-term memory storage and decay of our memory. I would never have expect our visual image to decay faster then our auditory as I always tend to forget what I hear and remember what I see. I enjoyed reading about the experiments and examples provided as it was interesting to see the human processor model in action such as with the chunking affect and the rapid clicking experiment.
[edit] Onyi Lam 23:06, 13 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor" In previous lectures we discussed about auditory, tactile and visual perceptions and it seems to me a natural progression to talk about how to model our thoughts. The first part of this article explains how a computer can model our cognitive process by a set of interconnected memories and processions which are subgrouped into 3 man systems: the perceptual system, the motor system and the cognitive system. I think the part that talks about cognitive system is the most interesting, in which it describes how our working memory works and its decay rate, and also the long term memory as well. It also seems to me that as long as we are able to quantify our thought process into mathematical equations, it's not that hard to model the system. But I also wonder does this equation varies across individual or is it pretty consistent since some people have good memories and other just don't? If we were to model a truly humanistic model, it would be one that is very specific.
[edit] Rey Doctora 00:28, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor"
This read was very informative and explained, according to the author, the systematic way in which the human mind perceives and utilizes information. According to the article, there exist three subsystems which interact with each other to form the Model Human Processor system: the perceptual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system. Memory has been parameterized in terms of the storage capacity in items, the decay time of an item, and the main code type that the information is received which can be physical, acoustic, visual, or semantic. The processors have been parameterized with cycle time. What I found particularly interested in the article was the section on chunking and how Working Memory and Long Term memory interact. Working Memory holds the intermediate products of thinking and serves as the input and output to information that is absorbed perceptually. I am surprised by the statement that there is no erasure in Long Term memory (the decay time is infinity). I would think that slightly, overtime, some details of the Long Term memory would fade away. For example, a Long Term memory of a trip to a foreign country might not be as accurate because specific details about the trip, such as the clothing design the people wore or the type of shoes you wore on one particular day, would have decayed away.
[edit] Michael Lovejoy 00:57, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
“The Model Human Processor”
This reading provided a very interesting insight into how human minds work and can be categorized like computers. I am personally against turning the most basic human properties into equations and computers. However, in this case there are real applications to the assumptions and simplifications made. I found it interesting how if perceptual memory contents are numerous or complex and the stimulus is fleeting, then perceptual memory trace fades. There are also numerical attributes to provide actual information about how these processes occur in humans (e.g. I never thought about half lives for “Visual Image Store”). Eventually, however, the formulas and numerical information seemed to overwhelm the basic idea that humans and machines and inherently limited. There were a few examples that were somewhat interesting, such as the working memory mapping of binary digits. At least the author explained at the end that the model presented cannot do the human mind justice. Overall, the reading was a little complicated, but a very interesting model for humanity.
[edit] Monica Tanza 01:34, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
The Model Human Processor
This section was about the human mind, described like a computer, complete with coding metaphors. According to this article, the human processor consists of interconnected memories and processors and a set of principles of operation. The three subsystems of the memories and processors are the perceptual, cognitive and motor system. All of these sections were very technical, complete with equations. I personally did not enjoy this article and did not like the computer metaphor. I found the most interesting part to be the section about memory, but, like the rest of the article, the coding references bogged it down and misconstrued a lot of the meaning.
[edit] Urvashi 03:35, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"Model Human Processer and GOMS"
I felt this article was not very easy to read in several sections, and the technical terms got overwhelming to the point that trying to understand those terms frequently caused me to lose track of the point the writer of the article was actually trying to make. The article discusses how the human brain works similarly to a processor and is split up into three specific parts, namely the perceptual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system. The differences and the link between long term memory and working memory are explained, and the process of chunking is clarified as well. Information from the sensory memory must be encoded into symbolic form before it can be stored in the long term memory. I found it very interesting how the Cognitive Processer Cycle Time becomes shorter when a greater load is placed on it (ie user thinks harder)and also with more practice. This is one key way in which the human mind, I feel differs from the processer in a computer chip. Overall this article provokes us to look at the capabilities of the human mind from a different angle and also about the scope it has.
[edit] Erin Palermo 07:14, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
The Model Human Processor This reading was very interesting. It started out by dividing the "human processor" into three parts: the perceptual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system. I liked reading about the working memory and the long term memory. I thought the chunking aspect of working memory was very applicable to my life. For instance, for my ID number, I don't memorize it in its 8-digit form, or even in 4-digit chunks, I memorized it in 2 digits, 3 digits, and 3 digits. It seems random, but it really helped me to remember my ID number! I was really intrigued by the fact that the working memory has a half-life of 7 seconds! I attribute my poor memory to this fact! The section on Morse Code also interested me, because I think it would be very hard to remember signals! Overall, I thought the article was a bit technical, but also very informative. We need to be careful to take this information into consideration when designing, because we don't want things to be overcomplicated, to the point that our user doesn't remember how to use our technology.
[edit] Siu Pan Lam 08:55, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
“The Model Human Processor”
This section uses the metaphor of an information-processing system to describe the human mind for remembering facts and predicting gross human behavior. This was an amusing, yet reasonable perspective in my opinion since the arguments and analyses given in the section were well theorized and supported with relevant examples. The Model Human Processor described in this section is characterized by a set of memories and processors with principles called “principles of operation.” It is divided into three interacting subsystems, each with its own memories and processors (just like how an information-processing system is divided into subsystems): (1) the perceptual system, (2) the motor system, (3) the cognitive system.
(1)The perspective system includes both the Visual and Auditory Image Stores. It was interesting to note that the Auditory Image Store “decays” more slowly relative to the Visual Image Store, with a shorter half-life. This half-life represents the time after which the probability of retrieval is less than 50%. In addition, the cycle time of the Perceptual Processor has a duration on the order of 100 [50~20] msec. This means that perceptual events that occur within a single cycle are seen as a single percept if they are sufficiently similar.
(2)The motor system is involved in translating thought into action through the activation of voluntary muscles. The cycle time of the Motor Processor is 70 [30~100] msec. The instructive experiment that involved someone moving a pen back and forth between two lines as quickly as possible for 5 seconds was used to support the validity of the cycle time. Specifically, it was averaged that 68 pen reversals were made by the subject in the 5- second interval, or 74 msec/reversal. This means that the Motor Processor can issue commands about once every 70 msec, approximately. This simple demonstration is sufficient to support the validity of the cycle time of the Motor Processor.
(3)The cognitive system links inputs from the perceptual system to outputs of the motor system. It has the most complicated memories and processors. Cognitive memories can be divided into Working Memory (decay rate = 7 [5~226] sec) and Long-Term Memory (no decay, but retrieval depends on available associations). As described in this section, Working Memory is where all mental operations obtain their operands and leave their outputs. It allows the organization of activated elements of Long-Term Memory into larger units called chunks. This makes sense because we have the tendency to group things into a more recognizable pattern so that better understanding and information processing are possible. In order to be stored in Long-Term Memory, information from the sensory memories must be encoded into symbolic form. The Cognitive Processor has a cycle time of 70 [25~170] mseconds, depending on the experimental phenomena and circumstances that require one to identify the cycle. It is important to note that the cycle time is not constant; it can be shortened by practice, task pacing, greater effort, or reduced accurary.
[edit] Bryan Boling 10:45, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
“The Human Information Processor”
This article presented an interesting model of the behavior of the human mind. By relating the human thought process to computers, the author was able to build a model for both short and long term memories with predictable characteristics. Obviously this could be very beneficial for general study and prediction of human thought, but in the end it is just a metaphor for the human thought process. Although his equations of decay and memory storage have been empirically determined, it seems improbable that they could accurately predict every person’s ability to store and recall both short and long-term memory. Despite this, it still seems like a beneficial means of modeling the human thought process for the computer savvy, but I’m sure there are a number of other metaphors that would work equally well for describing the human cognitive abilities.
[edit] Hong How Quek 12:13, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
The article likens the human mind to an information processing system, and discusses human thought, memory and behavior as part of a larger model that he called "the model human processor". He even quantifies parameters such as memory storage capacity and decay time of memory retention, and fits them into equations that try to make numerical sense of the way we interact with our environment, such as Fitt's Law which very accurately relates the time it takes for the hand to move to a target of a certain size and distance away (when I tested it arbitarily after reading the article). I found this metaphor to be a really refreshing, yet accurate way to look at look at the connection between the human mind and the behavior that results. As an engineer, it is also interesting to observe the mathematical derivations that elucidated the times it takes for us to make decisions under varying degrees of uncertainty, the time it takes to perform a task on different trials, the working memory decay rate and so on. I can imagine how important these equations are in an industry that emphasizes good design for products, since human reaction times under varying situations is a key indicator as to whether users will find the product in question easy to use. I also liked the way the article described and chunking and put it in relation to how it aids memory, since chunking is a metaphor we learnt earlier.
[edit] Patricia Wang 12:26, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Human Information Processor"
The article basically breaks the human mind down into a very structured computer system-like model, defining the Model Human Processor as a combination of a set of memories and processors and principles. Memories are described by the parameters storage capacity, decay time, and whether it is physical, acoustic, visual, or semantic, while processors are described by cycle time. Three subsystems define the Model Human Processor: the perceptual system responsible for translates sensations from the physical world to corresponding representations in the mind, the motor system transfers mind , and the cognitive system which not only connects inputs from the perceptual system to outputs of the motor system, but also is involved with learning, information retrieval, and problem solving, all with its own set of memories and processors. From these definitions, laws and principles are formulated to further mathematically model the mind’s functions. For example, Fitt’s Law provides an equation to calculate the time it takes for one to move a hand to a target of a specified size lying a specified distance away. I thought this was an incredibly unique way of defining the workings of one’s mind and found that the assignment of concrete numbers and equations to relatively abstract ideas like the attainment and decay of memories was pretty impressive.
[edit] Megan Whittey 12:35, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Human Information Processor"
This article was pretty interesting to me. It talked about how you could model the human system, mainly three parts: the perceptual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system. I find this amazing that people are able to actually begin to create simple models of the human mind and how it works, and being able to apply that to computers and obtain data. I really liked the diagram/picture that it showed right away in the article showing the human mind with explanations and explaining how they were modeling it. When they were talking about the perceptual system it reminded me of class and the notes we took on the eyes, especially with psychophysics since it explained both physical and perceptual properties. I also found it interesting when they explained the decaying processes for the cognitive system, especially the short term and long term memory. Overall, I enjoyed reading this article, there were just alot of details and technical terms or formulas, but it was not too hard to understand.
[edit] Nicolas Suryono 13:11, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Human Information Processor"
This is a pretty interesting articles. I never tought the human mind work this way before. It talked about the perceptual system, motor system and cognitive system. I think this is a brand new way to think about the human mind and this is a good thing for a designer to know. The diagram and pictures also support the ideas well in this article. However, the articles tend to specify all the technical details at the end.
[edit] YeeWan Cheung 13:31, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor" describes the human mind as an information-processing system. Given this system a name like Model Human Process make it more self-explanatory. In order to make prediction of some of the human behavior aspects, a description of how the information-processing process works is necessary. The three interacting components of Model Human Processor include: the perceptual system that focuses on sensation, the motor system that translates thoughts into action, and also the cognitive system that serves between the perceptual and the motor systems. The article discusses the storage capacity and the main code type in detailed, with emphasis on the decay time and the cycle time among the three systems. It mentions some experiments that are used to collect the data. For examples, the pen back and forth movement experiment that measures the maximum motor output rate, and the binary-hexadecimal memory-span test. In my opinion, the experimental data they presented are highly dependent on the individuals’ capacity; however, data like the time delay might be useful for designs like car brake till to the reaction time relationship. Overall, even though a large amount of subjects can generate a more general human information-processing model, it is still not very useful to predict human behaviors because human behaviors are like weather that is hardly predictable.
[edit] Michael Chen 13:40, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor"
This was a very, very quantitative article that I found to be not too intuitive to grasp, simply because the relative concept of msec and such isn't well formed in my mind. One thing that would have helped immensely in this article would be the addition of some common place yard stick by which we can mentally associate the numbers. With that said, I found a lot of the tests given to be quite clever, such as the 5-second pen-between-two-lines correction test and the audio clicking resolution. I found the few equations that were presented in the chapter to be a lot more intuitive than the long list of numbers that were presented. Especially cute was the computer modeling diagram featuring the cartoon test subject. For some reason, his similarity to Elmer Fudd just made me laugh.
[edit] Ryan Panchadsaram 13:44, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
It is extremely interesting to read about how we process and store information in our brains. For me this concept is unique because I have never seen cognitive science in terms of storage and decay. The article brings up a point about visual and auditory image stores – and how visual image stores decay faster than auditory image stores. I think we can see that from our lives when we attend a lecture and a professor speaks about a point versus showing a slide with information on it. The other two systems Cognitive and Motor systems are discussed in the article. The cognitive one relates to what we learned about chunking numbers and how it aids in number recollection. Overall it was an interesting read, very scientific rather than theory. Good knowledge to know in order to measure human performance versus machine performance.
[edit] Andrew prasetyo 14:09, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
“Model Human Processor”
The article mainly explores the mechanism of human mind in a scientific way. I like how the author quantifies our perceptual processes, e.g. eye-movement, impulse delivery, and motor reaction. Moreover, the author supports this by using different measurements and graphs in explaining the cycle time of our “processor.” My favorite part of the article is the cognitive system because it elaborates how human process different impulses. It is astonishing to know how human can use different process that can aid him/her access the stored memory. One of the ways is by dividing the pieces of information into chunks or using association. I believe the process of chunking has been use widely nowadays. For instance, telephone number is divided into a string of 3-3-4 instead of a string of 10 numbers so that it can be easily memorize. I think understanding the human processor more deeply can help a lot in a product design in terms of understanding and aiding the users.
[edit] HAK-SEUNG KIM 14:15, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
The model human processor
This article is a lot informative and somewhat hard to understand if you do not have enough mathematics background. However, the author describes the types of juman processor clearly in this article. First of all, human mind is also information processing system and a description in the same sprit can be given for it. The terminology, model human processor, is the term to distinguish from the fuller psychological theory we would present in other contexts. Also, three subsystems ( perceptual processor, cognitive processor, motor processor) work interatively for the long-term memory, and working memory. Overall, I somewhat do not understand the mathematics formulas, but I can see how important and complex the human head is.
[edit] Jason Hu 14:20, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
This detailed reading described humans’ mental processes in terms of various systems (perceptual, motor, and cognitive) and types of memory. As someone with relatively little computer programming background, I felt that some of the analogies passed over my head. There were many equations provided to help us understand and analyze behavior and performance but they seem beyond the scope of this class. Some of the diagrams were equally dense though others did help to clarify concepts. There were some quite intriguing ideas discussed, including allegedly unlimited recall of long-term memory and the half-life of working memory.
[edit] Richard Chen 14:42, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Human Information Processor"
This article was a nice, interesting read because it offered a simple framework and model for explaining the complicated and intricate workings of the human mind. I would have to agree with the authors that a model so simple, of course, does not do justice to the richness and subtlety of the human mind. However, this model does help us to understand, predict, and further, to calculate the human mental performance. I was enlightened to the fact that the authors chose to divide our mental processes in three separate categories, namely the perceptual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system. The example that was presented regarding how much easier it was to chunk items so they became more memorable was especially useful to me. I believe I can use that strategy when studying for that required intensive and detailed memorization of facts. In general, I would say it’s always easier to break down long, complicated items—and when you do, the recalling of those items becomes much more do-able and easier—something that the authors have also alluded to in this article. For example, most of use don’t memorize our social security numbers as is; instead, we break them down by chunks (same goes for lock combinations and the like). Furthermore, the section in the reading about how there are short-term and long-term memories reminds me of the basic paradigm in which memories are formed, stored, and organized. Overall, I find myself convinced that such an interesting and simple model can nicely capture something as complex as the human mental processes.
[edit] Shilpi Verma 14:21, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
“The Model Human Processor”
The Model Human Processor is described by two attributes: a set of memories and processors, together with a set of principles known as the “principles of operation.” There are three interacting subsystems that the Model Human Processor can be divided into: the perpetual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system. Each of these subsystems has their own memories and processors. The important parameters of memory are the storage capacity in items, the decay time of an item, and the main code type (physical, acoustic, visual, semantic). The most important parameter of a processor is the cycle time. The perceptual system carries out sensations of the physical world detected by the body’s sensory systems. An example of this system is the visual system. The motor system translates thought into action through the activation of voluntary muscles. The cognitive system serves to connect inputs from the perpetual system to the right outputs of the motor system. Memories and the processor for the cognitive system are more complicated than those for the other system. There are two important memories in the cognitive system: the working memory and long term memory. The working memory holds information under current consideration and the long term memory stores knowledge for future use. Overall I really enjoyed reading the article because it allowed us to look at the human mind capabilities from a different perspective.
[edit] Justin Hsu 14:23, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor"
I thought that the article "The Human Model Processor" was very interesting. It gave me a completely new perspective on how the cognitive process works. The analogies the article poses helped me understand very explicitly what points the article makes. From a design perspective, I could see how this type of information could be useful. Designers with knowledge of these cognitive tendencies could design products that really have a large impact on and cater to their mental abilities. One particular point in the article that I did not know previously know that I thought was neat was how the mind acts very much like a hard drive where long term memories are stored with no deterioration. All that is needed is a proper trigger or a "command" that calls the memory to your mind. Overall, I thought that this article contributed very well to the design concepts we are learning. Some products that I can think of that would benefit greatly from this are products that give users information and direct them (signs, bulletins, etc.) By understanding how the memory retrieval works, a designer could design a sign with certain elements that would allow the user to more readily recall the information provided by the product. The use of preattentive elements coupled with the knowledge of triggers associated with long term memories would be very effective indeed.
[edit] Rakesh Vij 14:28, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
The Model Human Processor:
The human mind, similar to a computer, is also an information-processing system. The human processor can be described as a set of memories and processors together with a set of principles known as "principles of operation". The processor can be broken into three interacting subdivisions: the perceptual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system. Each of these systems in turn has its own memories and processors. The reading discusses these systems to explain the Model Human Processor. The perception system consists of sensors and associated system buffers. The cognitive system gets coded info from sensory images and stores it in memory. The motor system carries out the response and finishes the processor cycle. This reading was very interesting to read as it relates the Human Mind to a computer system, and ties back that understanding its operations will help us with human-computer interactions and designing interfaces.
[edit] Yang Hung 14:50, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor and GOMS"
I really liked the article use of analogy in comparing the human mind to a computer's information-processing system. The "model human processor" that the article describes splits the human mind into three subsystems: the perceptual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system. The perceptual system converts sensations and signals from the outside world into internal representations that the mind can understand. The motor system is responsible into converting human thought into actions by activating the voluntary muscles in the body. Lastly, the cognitive system acts as a bridge that connects the inputs from the perceptual system into correct outputs for the motor system. I thought that this article provided a good quantitative analysis of how our brain works. However, in terms of this class, I don't know how detailed our understanding of the human brain would have to be to conduct things like contextual interviews.
[edit] ChuiShan Wong 14:53, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor and GOMS"
This article described human mind is an information-processing system. The model human processor is a model used to describe human behavior. Also, it divides the Model Human Processor into three interacting subsystems; they are the perceptual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system. Each of them has its own memories and processor that are described by a few parameters. They are the storage capacity in items, the decay time of an item, the main code type, the most important one, the cycle time. All parameters cannot access separately. Also, the article uses 2 figures to describe the Model Human Processor which is interesting and make me easier to understand. This article is interesting, and I like the part as it talks about how the Long-Term Memory works. Moreover, it describes why the model human processor requires for Long-Term memory. At last, I doubt if the equations and data has talked in the article can be accurately verified because everyone do not have a same memorizing ability.
[edit] Johannesleholm 14:56, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
The Model Human Processor:
This article analyzes the human mind and sheds some brain light on how it functions. The subject material is super important to us up and coming designers because it enables us to design products that are compatible with the way our user's minds work. It’s sorta like making a fun game for a certain type of computer (but that game won’t run on other computer’s architecture) – we have to know the limitations and capabilities of the architecture we’re working with. My favorite part of the article was the casper the ghost like drawing of that man pressing a button. The author explains that the mind can be split between the perceptual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system. The perceptual system takes in the inputs (big man punches me in the stomach), the motor performs the outputs (legs move fast to runaway), and the cognitive links the two up (man who punched me in stomach has big muscles, probably not good to fight, so run). It was really interesting finding out about the ‘specs’ of the human mind, or how fast it takes us to process thoughts, and how reliable our memory is. I really liked the data on the exponential decay of our short term memory. My grandpa’s short term memory decay is almost instantaneous; while he can retrieve data from his long term memory with no decay (WWII stories), he can’t remember who he is telling them to on the phone (me). ps: i just wish the material was more technical.
[edit] James ChunJye Tong 15:05, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
This article describes the three subsystems of the model human processor, the perceptual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system. The perceptual system is detected by the sensory system of the body. Motor system is how the thought translated into action. The cognitive system connects perceptual system to motor system. The article further explains the working memory and long-term memory in the cognitive system. I think the part where it explains how chunks can help human mind to memorize things, and also the part about the relationship between working and long-term memory. I think the equations in the article make it a bit too technical to understand.
[edit] Katherine Tong 15:09, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor and GOMS"
The fact that this article presents human mental processes in such a scientific and quantifiable way makes me feel as though we are not far from designing and developing human-like machines. Unlike the articles and lessons an tactile and auditory perception, this paper really makes human recognition very quantifiable and easier to understand because we no longer take a biological standpoint.
[edit] Asmita Karandikar 15:16, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor"
The Model Human Processor is an interesting article that discusses how to model the mind as an information processing system. This can be a useful model because it can be used to predict human behaviors. The Model Human Processor has two parts – a set of interconnected memories and processors, and a set of principles of operation. The memories and processes have three subsystems – perceptual, cognitive, and motor. The human mind if very complex – sometimes these subsystems work in parallel, and sometimes in series. One part that I was surprised to read about talked about how motion is not continuous, but is made of many micromovements instead. Another section discusses “chunking” to help for long-term memory, which is a “design wisdom” that we previously discussed in class – it is interesting to see how these fit together. However, I found the mathematical sections to be too confusing, and I did not find those sections to be interesting.
[edit] Christopher Ling 15:21, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
“The Human Information Processor”
I felt this article provided a detailed description of the cognitive processes of the human mind, or processor. It represented the human processor as a “set of memories and processors together with a set of principle”. It was interested how it described each subcategory (perceptual system, motor system, cognitive system) in more depth. All of the subsystems are related to each other in someway. For example, I enjoyed how when a stimulus is recorded in one’s perceptual memory, this memory is also coded into the working memory. Even within the working memory, there is a short and long term memory, where the long term has an infinite decay cycle. However, it seemed possible that I could still forget something that would be considered in long-term memory, possible for not recalling that memory.
[edit] Minhaaj Khan 15:41, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
The Human Information Processor
This reading described a simplistic model of how the human mind functions, (the Model Human Processor) primarily in dealing with the processing of information. The model was explained somewhat mathematically with parameters of memory such as storage capacity in items and parameters of processors such as cycle times. The author describes the Model Human Processor as consisting of a set of interconnected memories and processors and a set of principles of operations. He categorizes the memories and processors into three subsystems: a perceptual system, a cognitive system, and a motor system. He summarized the most salient characteristics of these memories and processor subsystems through values for parameter such a processor cycle time, memory capacity, memory decay rate, and memory code type, along with a cycle time for each processor. I liked how graphs were present to further explain somewhat complicated results to provide better understanding of what was being said. Although somewhat complex, the Model Human Process allows us to gain greater insight into the theoretical aspects of human factors in design.
[edit] Shwan Kazzaz 15:48, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
The Model Human Processor
This article is an interesting way to look at the human mind. The way it breaks down the brain into three centers of processing, the perceptual system, the motor system, and the cognitive system is clever, but I feel that it doesn't cover the processes of the brain adequately. What part of this system controls involuntary brain functions, such as breathing, or keeping your heart beating? This is also a very burdensome article to read, as it is highly technical and somewhat hard to understand. I don't really think that it was necessary to be so verbose just to get this point across.
[edit] Umber Masood 16:02, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
“The Human Information Processor”
This reading was interesting, though difficult to follow at times. I liked reading the principles of operation. The Power Law of Practice, that the time to perform a task on the nth trial follows an inverse function, is something that makes sense; this is the first time I have seen it expressed mathematically with an equation. The Uncertainty Principle, that the time to make a decision increases with increasing uncertainty, also makes sense; it is interesting to see this principle expressed as an equation also. The reading mentions that access time is included in processor cycle time, yet does not explain why they are combined into one parameter. I think the reading should have provided an explanation of why these two factors are combined into one. It is possible that they are both included in the same parameter because the access time could be negligible or it could be that cycle time is of more interest than its two components separately. This was also my first time reading that the Visual Image Store decays faster than the Auditory Image Store and that the VIS has more capacity than the AIS. According to this observation, if the two parameters are related, it seems as though the more information that needs to be retained, the harder it is to remember. This reading also discussed a design principle that was taught earlier in the semester: information is easier to recall if it is divided into chunks. Overall, this was a nice reading. It was interesting to read about the time it takes for people to access and react to information from a scientific point of view.
[edit] Fenelia Kosasih 16:08, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor"
"The model human processor" refers to a model of the human mind. The author parallels the human mind to an information processing system, and hence can be modeled. The author divides the model into 2 subsections: a set of interconnected memories and processors, as well as a set of principles of operation, and then went on to focus on the memories and processors. In memories and processors, there are the perceptual, cognitive and motor system. The parameters used in the model includes processor cycle time, memory capacity, memory decay rate and memory code type. The thing that intrigued me most about this article is that such an abstract concept of the workings of human mind can be modeled with simple equations using a few parameters. While the model is to simple to fully account for the complexity of human mind, it is sufficient to be used to calculate human performance relevant to human-computer interaction.
[edit] Patrick Liu 16:08, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor"
This article details many interesting perspectives on the human process system for memory and for processeing information. The author describes the human mind as an “information-processing system” which I agree with. I always pictured my mind to be similar but a slight bit more advanced than a computer. I believe that our cognitive thinking runs on a neural code that our brain translates to other parts of our body. The perceptual system is basically a medium that relocates the sensation to the brain and the brain decodes the signal and allows the body to understand a certain sensation or relevance of the message the other part of the body sent to the brain. The article details very specific computations of how perceptual memory works and how auditory image store decays more slowly. I find all of this very boring, however, it is semi-interesting that the author is able to quanitify how our brain works. The motor system is what allows our body to move because it sends signals to our muscles and the muscles contract in the fashion that our brain designates it to contract. The cognitive system is the middle man that translates signals from the perceptual system to the motor system. This is exactly how I percieved our bodies to work before I read this article. The rest of the article was fairly difficult to read and not as interesting as the beginning of the article. But overall I enjoyed reading this article.
[edit] Joshua Funamura 16:08, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor"
It was interesting to think of the human mind and abilities as a computer and mechanical system with characteristic response properties. The memory section was especially interesting, since much of interface design involves repeated and sequential tasks that involve the working memory. Since the working memory decays at a finite and observable way, it seems immediately that we can apply this. For example, captchas, used to distinguish between computers and humans, involve different types of phrases. From experience, it's much easier to retype a word rather than a number of random consonants, and this observation is, at least partly, explained by the working memory decay rate. Taking this into account, easier-to-use captchas can be created. With respect to memory storage, I found it interesting that some relevant information could be stored properly but wouldn't be able to be accessed because the right associations and retrieval cues were lost. Maybe this is why metaphors are often used in user interface design, since association pathways are already in place. This article also confirmed another design principle previously discussed: chunking in order to facilitate memory.
[edit] Michael Toulouse 16:10, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
"The Model Human Processor"
The article seems to operate on the assumption that the human brain is exactly like like a computer. And indeed it is, in the way that both take in information, process it, and perform actions. In the article, it divides the brain into these general parts, calling them the "perceptual", "motor", and "cognitive" systems. It's an admirable endeavour, but I find it somewhat suspect to try and extend the metaphor beyond that. There are some dubious instances of what is probably just curve fitting, tenuous at best. Calling something the "power law of practice" legitimizes it too much, and implies more than empirically gathered evidence, like a theory or something similar. Thankfully, the article has a disclaimer at the top that it should be treated as a model. I do not doubt the accuracy of the quantitative data that is presented, but attempts to explain the phenomena often come off as only conjecture, making the article seem more like a creative way to present data than anything more. Either way, it is a good early step in a field that is not often well defined, and such shortcomings are not as important when referring to design, since design is also a largely empirical practice as well.
[edit] Marshall Anderson 16:18, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
“The Human Information-Processor”
I found this article interesting because I have had previous exposure to this type of research. I liked how they broke down the human system into three different sub-systems which makes it easier to understand how everything is related but it makes me wonder how accurate the model really is. It was impressive to see towards the end of the article were they can calculate many real-world things like response time, time to make a decision, etc. I think the biggest thing that I got out of this article is Fitt's law. I really disliked how long the reading was.
[edit] Ryan Jue 16:19, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
The Human Information Processor
I thought the article was sort of interesting as to how it was comparing human minds to a computer. It was interesting to me as artificial intelligence is doing the exact opposite and trying to compare ways to make a computer similar and mimic a human mind. Where the article tried to pose the memory as storage capacity and other metaphor links, AI is trying to claim the same similarities in an effort to build a system to replicate the human mind. While I thought that the similarity between the article and AI was interesting, I did think that the article was too technical and made use of too many equations to prove points.
[edit] Luciana Cook 17:06, 14 March 2007 (PDT)
The Human Information Processor
This article was interestng, it dealt a lot with how the human mind works. I liked the cognitive insight. It made me feel that I can understant the human race a lot better.
[edit] Raymond Kim 20:30, 14 March 2007 (PDT)=
Althought the article was a bit long and technical, it did provide some valuable insights and comparisons of computers to the human mind. Much of the same processes apply to both the mind and a computer such as the sequence of processing steps, logic, etc. Some interesting equations and quantitative approaches are taken to prove the author's point, but these are abstract and theoretical at best. It was however, a unique and interesting approach in comparing the two. However, I believe the article does avoid some of the more "gray" areas of the human mind which are extremely difficult and complex to model such as social interaction, emotion, etc. While reading the article I also recalled a scientific endeavor I had heard about in which programmers were trying to teach computers "common sense" from a human's perspective. While I don't recall the success of the project, I do believe that they were essentially hard coding all instances of "common sense" into a computer, revealing just how hard it is to train a computer to think like humans.
