Preface to “Future Directions in CEDM”

Abstract

Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making is the constant exposure to new thoughts and neat ideas. Our community wants to understand and describe the many rich aspects of cognitive work in real, complex work environments. Thus, we seek to support the joy of people becoming expert at their work and finding success in their own activities and as part of a team. Bubbling out of our community are new perspectives and visions for the future, which this journal seeks to aerate into broader understanding. The future direction proposed here comprises a collection of short essays on a variety of topics ranging from integrating organizational concerns into cognitive work analysis (Naikar and Elix) to a view of decision making that integrates naturalistic decision making, judgment, and economics (Gonzalez and Meyer) to a view of cognition as fundamentally distributed (McNeese). Woods discusses the risks of autonomy operating in the real world. Finally, Smith and his colleagues discuss lessons learned for designers from their own work, and my own piece takes the liberty of sharing my co-author’s experiences observing how cognitive engineering can really be integrated in design. These were offered by members of the JCEDM editorial board and associate editors, with the hope of sparking discussion among us all. We welcome your thoughts and perhaps submissions on these topics and research tackling these topics, but furthermore, we return to our joy in the new thoughts and new ideas we hope these provide and the conversations that they may inspire.