Capturing Cognitive Task Activities for Decision Making and Analysis

Abstract

This paper addresses some of the difficulties in capturing cognitive task related activities. It is argued that Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) should be used to assist in capturing cognitive task activities used for decision-making. The strong need for CTA regardless of form is presented; and its association to training and systems design is shown. The nature of cognition is discussed as is the knowledgeable use and handling of task related information and the importance of Knowledge Elicitation methods to aid the discovery and understanding of cognitive tasks is stressed. The many influences on the performance of cognitive tasks are discussed, as are the forms of information most pertinent to the understanding of cognitive tasks. The adverse effects of human heuristics on the performance of cognitive tasks and decision making are discussed.

Using a high level scenario it is shown that the identification or categorisation of a contact or target can be associated with generic stages of a mission and that this association is a cognitive task. Furthermore, a CTA method is introduced to illustrate the benefits of using such methods to analyse and depict the relationships to work goals of cognitive tasks, task related conditions, and task outcomes - these all as a means of understanding cognitive task activities and their purpose.

(Any views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the UK MoD)