Human Information Processing: Tutorials in Performance and Cognition

Abstract

The present volume, by utilizing a tutorial approach, covers some seven discrete regions within the general domain of human information processing. What does this volume convey that is truly unique, considering the recent proliferation of such books? Most happily, there is much that is unique, and this volume is in no sense another redundant and tired repetition of past reviews of the literature. Perhaps its most distinguishing characteristic is its approach to methodological issues and its emphasis on the commonalities "between human performance and human cognition aspects of information processing" (p. ix) rather than on the differences between these two approaches. As the editor says in his preface, "the tutorial style is aimed at two audiences." Graduate students who have yet to select an area of specialization should find the broad coverage an aid to this end. Sophisticated researchers who wish to learn more about a particular area of human information processing sufficiently removed from their own speciality that obtaining this information from a search of the literature might prove tedious should also find this volume helpful. Both groups should benefit from the heavy emphasis on methodology that is present throughout the volume. Thus, this book should protect the researcher who is new to an area or an approach from repeating some of the errors that have been noted by the authors. The first chapter, "Human Perceptual-Motor Performance" by Richard W. Pew, addresses first the properties and performance of rather mechanistic and "simple-minded error-correction systems." Issues such as the tracking of random signals and a simple model of compensatory tracking are discussed and examined critically and incisively. This develops naturally into a treatment of the relationship between discrete and continuous models of tracking performance. Finally, various higher-order mechanisms in tracking are then offered, sources of signal predictability are outlined, and sine-wave tracking is given as an example, with the overall analysis described in terms of the 'block diagram' that by now is all too familiar. Approximately midway through Pew's treatment, his concern shifts from tracking performance per se to a deep and fundamental understanding of the acquisition and performance of so-called voluntary movements. Perhaps Pew's most penetrating analysis of these issues is of the different roles played by memory in tracking performance versus voluntary movement. His discussion of motor memory is highly illuminating, and his discussion of schema learning as introduced by Bartlett and its relation to problems of motor memory is exceptional. Pew's overall analysis results in another block diagram that summarizes his thinking on 'voluntary' motor control. He concludes that "while a great deal of detail remains to be worked out, the main thrust of this chapter is that there is nothing incompatible among the representations of inner-loop control, higher-order tracking control, and the formulation and execution of so-called voluntary movements" (p. 36). Chapter 2, "The Interpretation of Reaction Time in Information-Processing Research" by Robert G. Pachella, is not only exceedingly timely but an excep695