Human Factors for Engineers
This volume introduces readers to the subject of human factors and provides practical and pragmatic advice to assist engineers in designing interactive systems that are safer, more secure and easier to use.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Human Factors for Engineers
Chapter 3: Humans Skills, Capabilities and Limitations
Jan Noyes, Kate Garland, Daniel Bruneau
3.1 Introduction
When designing for humans there is a need to know about and understand their cognitive skills and limitations. Humans, for example, are excellent at pattern-matching activities (and have been described as furious pattern-matchers ), but are poor at monitoring tasks, especially when the target is a low-frequency one. It is quite likely when monitoring say a radar screen for the appearance of an infrequent target that the human operator will miss it completely when it finally appears. These two activities are part of an array of information processing activities, which humans carry out throughout their waking hours. Pattern-matching is a perceptual skill while monitoring requires focused attention skills sustained over a period of time. One approach to considering human skills and design issues has been to think of the human as an information processor. This provides the basis for the current chapter, the aim of which is to look at the cognitive activities associated with human information processing in order to locate our skills, capabilities and limitations. Examples will also be provided to show how our knowledge of human information processing relates to the design of objects in everyday life and advanced technologies.
3.2 Humans as information processors
Humans are constantly bombarded by information. We continually receive information via our senses from our environment, which we either act upon or ignore. Information that we act upon will usually lead to some type of observable response. The information can take a number of forms...
Copyright The Institution of Electrical Engineers 2004 under license agreement with Books24x7
