Validation and application of a model of human decision making for human/computer communication

Decision making in a parallel human/computer system is considered. In this type of system, those tasks for which the computer identical to has the decision making responsibility tasks for which the human are has responsibility. For optimal system performance, it is crucial that the human and computer avoid redundant actions. The traditional method of avoiding redundancies is to have the human engage in an. explicit dialogue with the computer. This method adds an additional task for the human. An alternative method which does not increase workload is to provide the computer with a model of human decision making. If this model is accurate, the computer could predict the actions of the human and avoid those actions which are redundant. The mathematical development of such a predictive model is presented. The model suggested has two stages. The first stage uses discriminant analysis to describe human event detection behavior. The output from the first stage of the model is a vector of "event detected" probabilities, each entry in the vector representing a different system task. The second stage of the model uses dynamic programming to determine the optimal action at a specific point in time. The output from this stage of the model is the appropriate action for the human to take. Two experiments were presented to validate the first and second stage of the model, respectively. The experimental situation depicted a sheet metal plant in which the subjects were to monitor machines for failures. The first stage of the model predicted over 80% of the actions correctly, while the entire model predicted nearly 85% correctly. In the third experiment, the computer was implemented as a parallel decision maker. A significant improvement in performance was observed when the computer based decisions on a model of human decision making vs. when the model was ignored. A modeling approach is suggested as a reasonable alternative to explicit human/computer systems. communication in the design of Further research is suggested to determine the situations in which model based communication would be preferable to dialogue based communication.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Industrial Engineering and Operations Research

Department dc:contributor.department

Industrial Engineering and Operations Research

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Year dc:date.issued

1983

Author dc:creator

• Revesman, Mark E.

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10919/106353

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/106353