MATHEMATICAL CONCEPTS FOR MODELING HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN COMPLEX MAN-MACHINE SYSTEMS

Many useful mathematical models for manual control, monitoring, and decision-making tasks in man-machine systems have been designed and successfully applied. However, critical comments have occasionally been made, mainly by practitioners concerned with the design of complex man-machine systems. They especially blame models which seem to explain only data from abstract subtask experiments designed particularly for these models. In this review paper, an initial approach to bridging the gap between these two perspectives of models is presented. From the manifold of possible human tasks, a very popular baseline scenario has been chosen, namely car driving. A hierarchy of human activities is derived by analyzing this task in general terms. A structural description leads to a block diagram and a time-sharing computer analogy. The range of applicability of existing mathematical models is considered with respect to the hierarchy of human activities in real complex tasks. Also, other mathematical descriptions at least briefly considered here include utility, estimation, control, queueing, and fuzzy set theory as well as artificial intelligence techniques.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/1329271
• Corporate Authors:

  Human Factors Society

  Johns Hopkins University Press
  Baltimore, MD  United States  21218
• Authors:
  • Johannsen, G
  • Rouse, W B
• Publication Date: 1979-12

Media Info

• Features: References;
• Pagination: p. 733-747
• Serial:
  • Human Factors
  • Volume: 21
  • Issue Number: 6
  • Publisher: Sage Publications, Incorporated
  • ISSN: 0018-7208
  • EISSN: 1547-8181
  • Serial URL: http://hfs.sagepub.com/

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Applications; Automobile driving; Behavior; Decision making; Decision theory; Fuzzy sets; Human factors engineering; Human factors engineering; Human machine systems; Manual control; Mathematical methods; Mathematical models; Monitoring; Psychology; Queuing; Research; Simulation; Systems engineering
• Old TRIS Terms: Behavioral research; Combined manual and decision tasks; Systems science and cybernetics
• Subject Areas: Design; Highways; Research; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00314809
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Engineering Index
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 27 1980 12:00AM