HANDLING COMPLEX REAL-WORLD DATA WITH 2 COGNITIVE ENGINEERING TOOLS -COGENT AND MACSHAPE

The ultimate concern of cognitive engineering is how complex sociotech nical systems might be designed so that humans can work within them an d control them safely and effectively. Because of this, large amounts of observational data analysis and knowledge elicitation are incorpora ted in cognitive engineering. At many points, these two methodologies coalesce. In this paper, we describe two complementary cognitive engin eering software tools-MacSHAPA and COGENT-that are being developed alo ngside each other. MacSHAPA is designed for observational data analysi s, and COGENT is designed for knowledge elicitation and cognitive engi neering, but both support requirements gathering. We first outline cur rent trends in cognitive engineering that have given rise to the need for tools like MacSHAPA and COGENT. We then describe the two tools in more detail, and point to their similarities and differences. Finally, we show how the two tools are complementary, and how they can be used together in engineering psychology research.