DELIVERING COGNITIVE-PSYCHOLOGY TO HCI - THE PROBLEMS OF COMMON LANGUAGE AND OF KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

Although cognitive psychology showed much initial promise, it has fail ed to make significant contributions to the study of human-computer in teraction, which has led to a rejection of cognitivism in favour of si tuated action theory. The authors accept that the critique has much to offer, but reject the outright abandoning of cognitivism. Cognitive p sychology needs a common language in which to describe interaction bet ween people and artifacts: two examples of research in progress are de scribed, one focused on events, the other on representations and the r elationship between the information display and the conceptual model. Cognitive psychology also needs a better delivery method than the trad itional research paper, and the idea is proposed of a vocabulary of 'c ognitive dimensions', terms which can be meaningfully used by non-spec ialists (who will recognise familiar but uncrystallised concepts) and which can be used as indexes to the professional literature. These two components form a proposal for improving the effectiveness of cogniti ve psychology. The paper ends with the hope that mainstream cognitive psychology will broaden its area of enquiry.