Lecture 1

the human
Why?
Because you need to understand who you create software for

Prepared by: Dr. D’oria Islamiah Rosli

FPTV
the human: Summary
 Information i/o …
 visual, auditory, haptic (touch), movement
 Information stored in memory
 sensory, short-term, long-term
 Information processed and applied
 reasoning, problem solving, skill, error
 Emotion influences human capabilities
 Each person is different
Vision
Two stages in vision

• physical reception of stimulus

• processing and interpretation of stimulus

The Eye - physical reception
 mechanism for receiving light and
transforming it into electrical energy
 light reflects from objects
 images are focused upside-down on retina

Q – why don’t we see

upside down? Since we
have two retinas how
come we don’t see two
images?
The Eye - physical reception
retina contains rods for low light vision and
cones for colour vision

ganglion cells (nerve cells) with the brain,

detect pattern and movement
Interpreting the signal
 Size and depth
 visual angle indicates how much of view object
occupies
(relates to size and distance from eye)

 visual acuity is ability to perceive detail (limited)

 familiar objects perceived as constant size
(in spite of changes in visual angle when far away)

 cues like overlapping help perception of size and

depth
Interpreting the signal (cont)
 Brightness
 subjective reaction to levels of light
 affected by luminance of object
 measured by just noticeable difference
Colour
 Colour
 cones sensitive to colour wavelengths
 blue acuity is lowest (it the least sharp)
 8% males and 1% females colour blind

Deuteranopia
Normal colour
vision (red/green
vision = 5
colour deficit) = 2
Colour
When you look at this, how many colours do you see?

http://members.aol.com/Ryanbut/illusion4.html
Interpreting the signal (cont)
 The visual system compensates for:
 movement
 changes in luminance.

 Context is used to resolve ambiguity

 Optical illusions sometimes occur due to over

compensation
Optical Illusions

the Ponzo illusion

Illusions

the Muller Lyer illusion

Reading
 Several stages:
 visual pattern perceived
 decoded using internal representation of language
 interpreted using knowledge of syntax, semantics,
pragmatics

 Reading involves saccades and fixations

 Perception occurs during fixations
 Word shape is important to recognition
•Negative contrast improves reading from computer screen
 Reading: An Example
 Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the
ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is
taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll
raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the
huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe.

According to a researcher (sic) at Cambridge University, it doesn't matter in what order the
letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right
place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without problem. This is
because the human mind does not read every letter by itself but the word as a whole.
Hearing
 Provides information about environment:
distances, directions, objects etc.
 Physical apparatus:
 outer ear – protects inner and amplifies sound
 middle ear – transmits sound waves as
vibrations to inner ear
 inner ear – chemical transmitters are released
and cause impulses in auditory nerve

Middle
Outer ear Inner
ear ear
Hearing: Properties of Sound
 Pitch
 Sound pitch depends on the wavelength of sound – the shorter the
wavelength, the higher the pitch.
 Intensity
 Intensity of sound is the energy per second (power). Relative intensities are
measured in decibels.
 Loudness
 Loudness is a sensation and it is therefore difficult to measure. Usually the
greater the intensity, the greater the loudness.
 Quality or Timbre
 If the same note is played on a violin and a piano, you can tell the
difference. Each instrument introduces different overtones.
 Fundamental = pitch associated with a musical note
 Harmonics or overtone = quality of instrument gives timbre
 Hearing (cont)
 Humans can hear frequencies from 20Hz to 15kHz
 less accurate distinguishing high frequencies than low.
 Elephants – 16 - 12,000 Hz
 Dogs – 65 - 45,000 Hz
 Cats – 45 - 65,000 Hz
 Bats – 2,000 - 110,000 Hz
 Dolphins – 75 - 150,000 Hz

 Auditory system filters sounds

 can attend to sounds over background noise.
 for example, the cocktail party phenomenon.

How come you can usually tell when someone in the room says your name even though
there is a lot of background noise?
Touch
 Provides important feedback about environment.
 May be key sense for someone who is visually impaired.
 Stimulus received via receptors in the skin:
 thermoreceptors – heat and cold
 nociceptors – pain
 mechanoreceptors – pressure
(some instant, some continuous)

 Some areas more sensitive than others e.g. fingers.

 Kinethesis - awareness of body position

 affects comfort and performance.
Movement
 Time taken to respond to stimulus:
reaction time + movement time
 Movement time dependent on age, fitness etc.
 Reaction time - dependent on stimulus type:
 visual ~ 200ms
 auditory ~ 150 ms
 pain ~ 700ms

 Increasing reaction time decreases accuracy in the

unskilled operator but not in the skilled operator.
Movement (cont): Fitts’ Law

A model of human movement, predicting the time required to

rapidly move from a starting position to a final target area
 T is the average time taken to complete the movement.
 a and b are empirical constants, and can be determined
by fitting a straight line to measured data.
 D is the distance from the starting point to the center of the
target.
 W is the width of the target measured along the axis of
motion. W can also be thought of as the allowed error
tolerance in the final position, since the final point of the
motion must fall within ± W/2 of the target's centre.

So to be quick we want….targets as large as possible and

distances as small as possible
Memory
There are three types of memory function:

Sensory memories

Short-term memory or working memory

Long-term memory

Selection of stimuli governed by level of arousal.

sensory memory
 Buffers for stimuli received through senses
 iconic memory: visual stimuli
 echoic memory: aural stimuli
 haptic memory: tactile stimuli
 Examples
 “sparkler” trail
 stereo sound
 Continuously overwritten
Short-term memory (STM)
 Scratch-pad for temporary recall

 rapid access ~ 70ms

 rapid decay ~ 200ms

 limited capacity - 7± 2 chunks

Examples

212348278493202

0121 414 2626

HEC ATR ANU PTH ETR EET

Long-term memory (LTM)
 Repository for all our knowledge
 slow access ~ 1/10 second
 slow decay, if any
 huge or unlimited capacity

 Two types
 episodic – serial memory of events
 semantic – structured memory of facts,concepts, skills

semantic LTM derived from episodic LTM

Long-term memory (cont.)
 Semantic memory structure
 provides access to information
 represents relationships between bits of information
 supports inference

 Model: semantic network

 inheritance – child nodes inherit properties of parent nodes
 relationships between bits of information explicit
 supports inference through inheritance
LTM - semantic network
Models of LTM - Production rules
Representation of procedural knowledge.

Condition/action rules
if condition is matched
then use rule to determine action.

IF dog is wagging tail

THEN pat dog

IF dog is growling
THEN run away
LTM - Storage of information
 rehearsal
 information moves from STM to LTM

 total time hypothesis

 amount retained proportional to rehearsal time

 distribution of practice effect

 optimized by spreading learning over time

 structure, meaning and familiarity

 information easier to remember
LTM - Forgetting
decay
 information is lost gradually but very slowly

interference
 new information replaces old: retroactive interference
 old may interfere with new: proactive inhibition

so may not forget at all memory is selective …

… affected by emotion – can subconsciously `choose' to forget
LTM - retrieval
recall
 information reproduced from memory can be assisted by
cues, e.g. categories, imagery

recognition
 information gives knowledge that it has been seen before
 less complex than recall - information is cue
Thinking
Reasoning
deduction, induction, abduction
Problem solving
Deductive Reasoning
 Deduction:
 derive logically necessary conclusion from given premises.
e.g. If it is Friday then she will go to work
It is Friday
Therefore she will go to work.

 Logical conclusion not necessarily true:

e.g. If it is raining then the ground is dry
It is raining
Therefore the ground is dry
Inductive Reasoning
 Induction:
 generalize from cases seen to cases unseen
e.g. all elephants we have seen have trunks
therefore all elephants have trunks.

 Unreliable:
 can only prove false not true

… but useful!
 Humans not good at using negative evidence
Abductive reasoning
 reasoning from event to cause
e.g. Sam drives fast when drunk.
If I see Sam driving fast, assume drunk.

 Unreliable:
 can lead to false explanations
Problem solving
 Process of finding solution to unfamiliar task using
knowledge.
 Several theories.

 Gestalt
 problem solving both productive and reproductive
 productive draws on insight and restructuring of problem
 attractive but not enough evidence to explain `insight' etc.
 move away from behaviourism and led towards information
processing theories
Problem solving (cont.)
Problem space theory
 problem space comprises problem states
 problem solving involves generating states using legal
operators
 heuristics may be employed to select operators
e.g. means-ends analysis
 operates within human information processing system
e.g. STM limits etc.
 largely applied to problem solving in well-defined areas
e.g. puzzles rather than knowledge intensive areas
Problem solving (cont.)
 Analogy
 analogical mapping:
 novel problems in new domain?
 use knowledge of similar problem from similar domain

 analogical mapping difficult if domains are semantically different

 Skill acquisition
 skilled activity characterized by chunking
 lot of information is chunked to optimize STM

 conceptual rather than superficial grouping of problems

 information is structured more effectively
Errors and mental models
Types of error
 slips
 right intention, but failed to do it right
 causes: poor physical skill,inattention etc.
 change to aspect of skilled behaviour can cause slip

 mistakes
 wrong intention
 cause: incorrect understanding
humans create mental models to explain behaviour.
if wrong (different from actual system) errors can occur
Emotion
 Various theories of how emotion works
 James-Lange: emotion is our interpretation of a
physiological response to a stimuli
 Cannon: emotion is a psychological response to a stimuli
 Schacter-Singer: emotion is the result of our evaluation
of our physiological responses, in the light of the whole
situation we are in
 Emotion clearly involves both cognitive and
physical responses to stimuli
Emotion (cont.)
 The biological response to physical stimuli is
called affect

 Affect influences how we respond to situations

 positive  creative problem solving
 negative  narrow thinking

“Negative affect can make it harder to do even

easy tasks; positive affect can make it easier to
do difficult tasks”
(Donald Norman)
Emotion (cont.)
 Implications for interface design
 stress will increase the difficulty of problem solving
 relaxed users will be more forgiving of
shortcomings in design
 aesthetically pleasing and rewarding interfaces
will increase positive affect
Individual differences
 long term
– sex, physical and intellectual abilities
 short term
– effect of stress or fatigue
 changing
– age

Ask yourself:
will design decision exclude section of user
population?
Psychology and the Design of
Interactive System
 Some direct applications
 e.g. blue acuity is poor
 blue should not be used for important detail

 However, correct application generally requires understanding

of context in psychology, and an understanding of particular
experimental conditions
TQ
<< Nama Kursus >> 47