Human Cognitive Abilities and Skills

• Human cognitive abilities and skills encompass mental processes for acquiring knowledge, solving problems, and adapting to the environment.
• Examples of these abilities include perception, attention, memory, reasoning, problem-solving, and language comprehension.
• Memory, thinking, and language are studied.
• Astronauts serve as an example to demonstrate cognitive processing, accuracy, and minimal error.
• Bottom-up and top-down processing, along with unitization methods, are essential aspects of cognitive processing.
• Perception and memory, along with attentional processes, are critical components.

Memory Retrieval Failures

• Failure to execute a task may result from weak strength, low frequency (low recency), or failure in the recency of information.
• Weak associations can make information difficult to recall or retrieve, sometimes involving interfering associations.
• Weak memory retrieval can stem from low-frequency usage and a lack of recent availability.
• Weak associations lead to forgetting, affecting performance, efficiency, satisfaction, and employee safety.

Organization of Information

• Information is associated together during the organization process.
• Meaningful relative information is bound together.

Semantic Networks

• Semantic networks are knowledge structures showing how concepts relate and interconnect.
• Semantic networks are vital in the retrieval process.
• Weak associations, if not recent, can lead to retrieval failure.
• Example: A banana is yellow, a fruit, liked by monkeys in jungles, mammalian, lives in the wild, and smelly because they don't bath, eaten by humans, and rich in potassium.

Types of Semantic Networks

• Schemas are cognitive frameworks for organizing and interpreting information.
• Schemas guide perception, memory, and problem-solving based on prior experiences.
• Example: A child who has only seen cats may initially refer to a cub as a "cat" due to similar features, but the child can then accommodate a new schema for "cub".
• Mental models are internal representations of how things work in the real world.
• Mental models help people predict outcomes, make decisions, and understand complex systems.
• Mental models are often simplified and evolve with experience.
• Example: A student's mental model of gravity allows them to predict how objects will fall.
• Cognitive maps are mental representations of spatial relationships and environments.
• Cognitive maps help individuals navigate physical spaces by organizing information about locations and distances.
• Example: A person uses their mental map of a campus to determine the shortest route from the library to the cafeteria.

Usage of Long-Term Memory in Design

• Encourage regular information to increase frequency and recency
• Encourage active verbalization/reproduction of information
• Standardize environment, equipment, including the control, displays, symbols and operating procedures
• Use memory aids like computers and notebooks.
• Carefully design information to be remembered
• Design to support development of correct mental models

Attention

• Attention is a significant cognitive component.
• Attention plays a major role in selecting specific stimuli from the many present.
• Cognitive resources are limited and selective.
• Sensory channels are selected through attentional processes.
• Attention is selective, divisible, sustainable, and shiftable.

Selection of Sensory Channels

• Selection of sensory channels is the brain's ability to prioritize and focus on specific sensory inputs.
• The sensory channels filter out distractions.
• Selective attention helps individuals concentrate on relevant stimuli.
• Example: Focusing on a conversation in a noisy environment (auditory attention).
• Brains can focus on auditory attention
• Exclusion of other stimuli
• Attention to relevant stimuli

Factors of Selection

• The factors of selection determine what information or stimuli people focus on, process, and respond to.
• Salience refers to how noticeable a stimulus is.
• People focus on information that stands out in intensity, contrast, novelty, or relevance.
• Effort is the mental or physical energy to process a stimulus.
• People focus on information needing less effort, unless highly motivated.
• Expectancy is our expectation of what we will see or experience.
• If anticipating an event, related cues are more likely to be noticed.
• Value is the perceived importance or personal relevance of information.
• People focus on stimuli aligning with their goals, needs, or interests.