USER COGNITIVE REPRESENTATIONS - THE CASE FOR AN OBJECT-ORIENTED MODEL

This study empirically investigates the effect on user performance usi ng object oriented cognitive structures. The results indicate improvem ent in the quality (measured by response time and error rate) of decis ions for subjects who were monitored in an experimental setting. These findings indicate the presence of object oriented properties in user cognition. Such an inference puts the theorized mechanisms of human in formation processing such as, cognitive economy, and limited storage s pace, in proper perspective. The study discusses implications of these findings for requirements analysis, user-interface design, and traini ng. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.