Cognition friendly interaction: A concept of partnership in human computerinteraction

This paper identifies yet another field of research, the discipline of huma n computer interaction, where the concept of self-similar fluctuations can play a vital role. A concept of interaction between computation and cogniti on is developed that is friendly toward the cognitive process. It is argued that friendly interactions must have a memory and be antipersistent. To ca st this in a mathematical form, fluctuations in the interactions recorded o ver a period of time are studied, and it is shown that these fluctuations m ust necessarily be self-similar with the value of the self-similarity param eter confined to the interval (0, 1/2), for the interaction to be friendly. A statistical measure of complexity, of the interaction process, is also f ormulated as a function of the self-similarity parameter. Finally the quest ion is raised as how to build a friendly software and a possible evolutiona ry process through which friendly softwares may emerge is indicated. (C) 20 01 American Institute of Physics.