Behavioral Sciences and Computing

Abstract

AbstractThis article presents an overview of behavioral science research on human–computer interactions. The research is peresented according to the following three categories: (1) antecedent‐consequence effects, (2) model building, and (3) individual‐social perspectives. The first category, antecedent‐consequent effects, asks questions such as follows: How does variability in human abilities, traits, and prior performance affect computer use? How does use of computers affect variability in human abilities, traits, and subsequent performance? The second category, model building, consists of research on the nature of human abilities and performance using metaphors form computer science and related fields. Here, the behavioral scientist is primarily interested in understanding the nature of human beings but uses computer metaphors as a basis for describing and explaining human behavior. Model building can also start with assumptions about the nature of human beings, for example, limitations of human attention or types of motivation that serve as the basis for the development of new products and applications for human use. The third category, individual‐social perspective, investigates the effects of increased access to and acceptance of computers in everyday life on human social relations. Questions addressed here are those such as follows: Do computers serve to isolate or connect persons to one another? What are the implications of lack of either access or acceptance of computers in modern cultures? Given the sheer quantity of empirical invesigations in behavioral sciences computing research, the reader should appreciate the highly selective nature of this article.