Human Computer Interaction

(CNSCC.202)

Lecture 2 The Human

Dr. Muhammad Azhar Iqbal
Lancaster University, UK

Acknowledgements: Damian Arellanes, Jiangtao Wang

Recap – Lecture 1
• What is HCI?
• discipline – design, evaluation and implementation of interactive
computing systems for human use and the study of major
phenomena surrounds them.
• What HCI involves?
• (understanding users/problems, designing solutions, evaluate user
behaviour)
• UI + UX
• Key components of HCI
• (Human, Computer, Interface)
• Why HCI is important?
• Economical, Social, and System View
• Timeline of significant events
• Vannevar Bush to MAC/Windows System.
Today’s Lecture – Humans
• Human Input and Output channels
• (visual channel, auditory channel, haptic channel)

• Human Movement
• Fitt’s Law

• Human Memory
• Sensory Memory, Short-term Memory, Long-term
Memory

• Human Information Processing

• (Reasoning, problem solving, skill acquisition, error)

• Emotion/Environment influences human capabilities

Today’s Lecture – Humans
• Humans as users share common capabilities but are
individuals with differences. Individuals are limited in
their capacity to process information.
• Input and Output channels
• (visual channel, auditory channel, haptic channel,
movement)
• Information is stored in memoy
• (sensory memory, short-term (working) memory, long-
term memory)
• Information is processed and applied
• (Reasoning, problem solving, skill acquisition, error)
• Emotion/Environment influences human capabilities
The Human
• Interaction with the outside world occurs through information
being received and sent: input and output.

• Interaction with a computer the user receives information that is

output by the computer, and responds by providing input to the
computer – the user’s output becomes the computer’s input and
vice versa.

• Input in the human occurs mainly through the senses and output
through the motor control of the effectors.

• Major senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.

• Sight, hearing, touch are the most important to HCI. Taste and
smell do not currently play a significant role in HCI.
The Human
• Information i/o …
• visual, auditory, haptic (sense of touch), movement

• Information stored in human memory

• sensory, short-term, long-term

• Information processed and applied

• reasoning, problem solving, skill, error

• Emotion and Environment influences human

capabilities
Input Channels/Output
Channels
(Vision, Hearing, Touch)

Reaction and Movement

Vision

Primary source of information for the average person.

Two stages in vision

• Physical reception of stimulus

(Limitations of human eye)
• Processing and interpretation of stimulus
(interpretative capabilities of visual processing allow
images to be constructed from incomplete information)
The Eye - physical reception

• receiving light and transforming it

into electrical energy

• light reflects from objects

• images are focused upside-down on

retina

• Brain detects pattern and movement

Interpreting the signal
• The information received by the visual apparatus must
be filtered and passed to processing elements which
allow us to recognize
• coherent scenes,
• disambiguate relative distances and
• differentiate color

• How we perceive
• size and depth, brightness and color, each of which
is crucial to the design of effective visual interfaces.
Interpreting the signal (cont.)
• Size and depth
• The first aspect of visual perception
• 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)
Interpreting the signal (cont.)

• Brightness
• subjective reaction to levels of light
• affected by luminance of object
• measured by just noticeable difference
• visual acuity increases with luminance as does flicker

• Colour
• made up of hue, intensity, saturation
• Cones are sensitive to colour wavelengths
• blue acuity is lowest
• 8% males and 1% females colour blind
Interpreting the signal (cont.)
• Visual processing involves the transformation and
interpretation of a complete image

• The visual processing system compensates for:

• movement
• changes in luminance (glow).

• Positive Interpretation: context is used to resolve

ambiguity
• Ambiguity is the state of having more than one possible meaning

• Negative Interpretation: optical illusions sometimes occur

due to over compensation
Positive Interpretation based on Expectations
Negative Interpretation or Optical Illusions

The Muller-Lyer Illusion

The Ponzo Illusion

• Optical illusions highlight the differences between the way things

are and the way we perceive them – and in interface design we
need to be aware that we will not always perceive things exactly as
they are.
• Optical illusions also affect page symmetry: We tend to see the
center of a page as being a little above the actual center. so if a
page is arranged symmetrically around the actual center, we will
see it as too low down
Reading
• The perception and processing of text (not images) is a
special case that is important to interface design.

• 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
Reading

• Most people reading this rapidly will read it

correctly, although closer inspection shows that the
word ‘the’ is repeated in the second and third line.
Examples
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
• Properties of sound
• Pitch (frequency of sound)
• Loudness (amplitude of sound)
• Timbre (Quality)
Hearing (cont.)

• Humans can hear frequencies from 20Hz to

15kHz
• less accurate distinguishing high frequencies
than low.

• Auditory system filters sounds

• can attend to sounds over background noise.
Hearing (cont.)
• Suggest ideas for an interface which uses the properties
of sound effectively.
• Think that how sound could be added to an application with which you are
familiar.

• Uses of non-speech sounds include the following:

• Attention – to attract the user’s attention to a critical situation or to the end of

a process

• Status information – continuous background sounds can be used to convey

status information. For example, monitoring the progress of a process
(without the need for visual attention).

• Confirmation – a sound associated with an action to confirm that the action

has been carried out. For example, associating a sound with deleting a file.
Touch (Haptic Perception)
• 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
• Mechanoreceptor – pressure

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

Touch (cont)

• Convenience VS Experience

• Touch is a Key sense for applications where

the experience is important

• E.g., Virtual shopping mall, let people feel

their texture and weight (with tactile
hardware)
In-Class Discussion (5 minutes)

E-commerce has become very successful in

some areas of sales (e.g., travel service, books
and food), but less successful in some retail
areas such as clothes shopping.
Why?
Reaction and 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
Movement

• Fitts' Law describes the time taken to hit a screen target:

M = a + b log2(D/S + 1)

where: a and b are empirically determined constants

M is the movement time
D is the distance to be moved
S is the size of the target

ÞUsers find it more difficult to manipulate small objects

Þ Targets as large as possible distances as small as possible
Human Memory
Three Types of Memory
• A model of structure of memory

Sensory attention Short- rehearsal Long-term

memories term memory
memory

• Buffers for • Scratch-pad for • Repository for

stimuli received temporary recall knowledge
– iconic memory – rapid access – slow access
– echoic – rapid decay – slow decay
memory – limited capacity – huge capacity
– haptic memory
Sensory Memory

• Buffers for stimuli received through

senses
• iconic memory: visual stimuli
• echoic memory: aural stimuli
• haptic memory: tactile stimuli

• Continuously overwritten
Short-Term Memory (STM)
• Scratch-pad for temporary recall

• rapid access ~ 70ms

• rapid decay ~ 200ms

• limited capacity - 7± 2 chunks

Chunking information can increase the

capacity of STM.
Examples

01214142626  0121 414 2626

HEC ATR ANU PTH ETR EET


THE CAT RAN UP THE TREE

Example of implications for HCI:

 Navigation items/tab/menu: maximum 5~9
 If too many, use hierarchical structure
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

• Object + relationships
• relationships between bits of information explicit
• inheritance – child nodes inherit properties of parent
nodes (supports inference through inheritance)
LTM - semantic network
Models of LTM - Frames
• Information organized in data structures
• Slots in structure instantiated with values for instance of data
• Type–subtype relationships

DOG COLLIE

Fixed Fixed
legs: 4 breed of: DOG
type: sheepdog
Default
diet: carniverous Default
sound: bark size: 65 cm
Variable Variable
size: colour
colour
Models of LTM - Scripts
Model of typical information required to interpret situation
Script has elements that can be instantiated with values for
context
Script for a visit to the vet
Entry conditions: dog ill Roles: vet examines
vet open diagnoses
owner has money treats
owner brings dog in
Result: dog better pays
owner poorer takes dog out
vet richer
Scenes: arriving at reception
Props: examination table waiting in room
medicine examination
instruments paying
Tracks: dog needs medicine
dog needs operation
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
LTM - Retrieval

recall
• information reproduced from memory can be assisted
by cues, e.g. categories
• “Tom recalled that he first met Jack during a business trip to Beijing”

recognition
• information gives knowledge that it has been seen
before
• less complex than recall
Information Processing
(Reasoning deduction, induction,
abduction, Problem solving)
Deductive Reasoning

• derives logically necessary conclusions

from given rules.

• it moves from the general to the particular.

e.g. If it is Friday then she will go to work
It is Friday
Therefore she will go to work.
Inductive Reasoning

• Induction:
• generalize from cases seen to cases unseen (from
cases to rules)
e.g. all elephants we have seen have trunks
therefore all elephants have trunks.

• Unreliable:
• can only prove false not true

… but useful!
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.
• Problem space theory
• Analogy (knowledge transfer)
•…
Problem Solving (cont.)
• Problem space theory
• problem space comprises problem states
• problem solving involves generating states using
legal operators
• Analogy (knowledge transfer)
• analogical mapping:
• novel problems in new domain?
• use knowledge of similar problem from similar
domain
• analogical mapping difficult if domains are
semantically different
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

• 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 increases the difficulty of problem solving
• Do not overestimate, because in stressful situations,
people perform rather poorly.

• relaxed users are more forgiving of shortcomings

in design

• pleasing and rewarding interfaces 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?
End of This Lecture