Cognitive modeling of human interaction with complex environments
Speaker
Christian Lebiere
Research Scientist, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
When
-
Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)
Description
This talk describes a number of projects involving cognitive models of human interaction with complex environments. These models were developed using the ACT-R cognitive architecture, a hybrid symbolic-connectionist theory that combines a production rule system with an adaptive subsymbolic layer. The first project models the behavior of a human controller in a synthetic air traffic simulation. The model accounts for a wide range of human performance measures over a number of interaction conditions. Because of its predictiveness, its analytical tractability and the efficiency of its development, the model offers a way of evaluating interface design decisions that is more cost-effective, reliable and insightful than human subjects. The rest of the talk describes ongoing projects to apply this modeling methodology to real-world environments. The first project models sources of human errors to reduce runway incursions by commercial airliners. The second project models procedures used by fighter pilots to inform the design of the information systems in the cockpit of the Joint Strike Fighter. The third project uses models as cognitive agents to improve the realism of opponents in virtual reality urban combat training simulations used by US forces. We will conclude by discussing the remaining obstacles to a broad application of cognitive models.
Speaker's Bio
Christian Lebiere is a Research Scientist in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Liege (Belgium) and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. During his graduate career, he worked on the development of connectionist models, including the Cascade-Correlation neural network learning algorithm that has been used in hundreds of scientific, technical and commercial applications. Since 1990, he has worked on the development of the ACT-R hybrid cognitive architecture and is co-author with John R. Anderson of the 1998 book, The Atomic Components of Thought. His main research interest is cognitive architectures and their applications to psychology, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, decision-making, game theory, and computer-generated forces.