Evaluative cognition and attention allocation in human interface

Abstract

AbstractThis paper investigates evaluative cognition and attention, which are the most important human abilities required in the manmachine system. A mathematical model for the evaluative cognition is proposed, and an effort is made to describe clearly the basic relation between the evaluative cognition based on the importance of several simultaneously presented information data and the attention allocation based on the result of the evaluative cognition. The information cognition space is introduced into the model to represent the state which describes the human information cognition. In the space, the information is compressed into the set of information expectation values, and then the evaluative cognition is performed. The allocation of attention is formulated as the ratio of the object information expectation values to the sum of the presented information expectation values. By the proposed evaluative cognition model, a clearer theoretical basis is provided for the attention allocation model. To verify the validity of the attention allocation model, a psychological experiment was made in which several figures are presented for a short interval (0.5 s). The results of experiment agreed almost completely with theoretical values, indicating the validity of the theory.