Problems of content-based cognitive ergonomics

Abstract: Due to ongoing advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligent technologies, it is important to consider whether the conceptual foundations of technologically important traditional approaches should be re-investigated. Content-based cognitive ergonomics provides a good example of exploring the conceptual foundations and new tools of human–technology interaction (HTI) research, development and design thinking. In modern cognitive ergonomics one of its cornerstones is limited human information processing capacity. Nevertheless, numerous types of problems cannot be investigated, or solutions designed simply by relying on the idea of limited capacity. For example, different types of misconceptions do not overload human attention or memory, but their analysis must be grounded in the concept of “mental content, i.e. information contents of users’ mental representations” In fact, the most important limitation of capacity-based psychological thinking is its inability to express the properties of the representational information content in the mind. However, mental information content forms the foundations for human rationality, reasoning, and intellectual processes, which also guide human actions. The research problem is not in knowing the limits of processing, but rather the contents of such processing. Therefore, we present a description of the ground concepts of content-based cognitive ergonomics in which the analysis, argumentation, and explanations are based on information contents in human mental representations. Rather than providing a typical empirical research paper with results, we demonstrate and discuss how a content-based cognitive scientific approach can be used to investigate the structures of intellectual processes and the contents of mental representation in human thinking within the domain of industrial process control work. This kind of information can be usable and lead to decisive criteria in cognitive ergonomics related to the working process and the relevance of proposed solutions. Thus, we see content-based thinking and research as essential approach for building concrete applications for human interaction with intelligent systems and for further technology development. Content-based thinking is a new conceptual tool in studying and designing human interaction with intelligent machines.

Keywords: Cognitive Ergonomics, Mental Content, Mental Representations, Human System Interactions

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1005545

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