Juergen Kiefer

One of the central questions addressed in the project READY was that of how a system can automatically recognize situationally determined resource limitations of its user—in particular, time pressure and cognitive load. This chapter summarizes most of the work done in READY on this topic, presenting as well some previously unpublished results. We f...

The work presented here is focusing on the behavior of participants in situations of daily life, in which several demands apparently at the same time need to be dealt with. After introducing into the topic labeled as “human multitasking”, embedded in situation of routine life, reasons for choosing the topic and approaching it are provided (chapter...

Especially in mobile systems, one important part of the context of use involves psychological variables like cognitive load and time pressure. This paper looks at one possible way of capturing such aspects of context: the analysis of the features of the users' speech. In a replication and extension of an earlier study of our group, we created four...

A cognitive approach towards the understanding of human multitasking is presented in this contribution. Four dual-task studies provide evidence for the development and application of cognitive strategies which we refer to as "heuristics": these fast and frugal rules of thumb help to adaptively use the information and structure of the environment to...

Risky prospects come in different forms. Sometimes options are presented with convenient descriptions summarizing outcomes and their respective likelihoods. People can thus make decisions from description. In other cases people must call on their encounters with such prospects, making decisions from experience. Recent studies report a systematic an...

In this study, we examine the hypothesis of Ericsson and Kintsch's (1995) Long-Term Working Memory (LTWM) theory, according to which, with practice, people can utilize long-term memory so efficiently that they can overcome interruptions virtually without any costs. Six subjects were recruited to perform algebraic problem solving tasks for a total o...

In a recent study we investigated how subjects develop a cognitive skill that helps to overcome negative effects of task interruption. We are interested in the cognitive mechanisms relevant in this context and question how fast people reach a mental state in which interruptions do not matter anymore. Primary task in the experiment is a math task (s...

Aim of our study was to investigate if disruptions and different retention intervals lead to a decline in prospective memory task performance. For this purpose a multitasking scenario was conducted in which subjects had to perform a primary driving task with embedded lane changes as the prospective memory task. While performing the driving task sub...

Im Workshop „Kognitive Modellierung in dynamischen Mensch-Maschine-Systemen“ wurde ein Einblick in die kognitive Modellbildung in dynamischen Aufgabenumgebungen gegeben. Der Workshop fand im Rahmen der jährlichen Frühjahrsschule des Zentrums-Mensch-Maschine-Systeme (ZMMS) der Technischen Universität Berlin statt. Im ersten, theoretischen Teil lag d...

In alltäglichen Situationen befinden sich Menschen häufig in Situationen, in denen mehrere Aufgaben scheinbar gleichzeitig bearbeitet werden. Obwohl sich viele psychologische Studien bereits mit Doppelaufgaben-Situationen beschäftigt haben (Pashler, 2000; Levy & Pashler, 2001; Pashler, 1994; Meyer & Kieras, 1997a, 1997b), existieren immer noch weni...

In a study about interaction with in-vehicle information systems, participants were put in a dual-tasking scenario. They had to operate a basic research test while driving in a driving simulator. Individual differences were found both in single tasking as well as in multitasking condition. It turned out that during multitasking participants seem to...

Zusammenfassung Zentrales Interesse des vorliegenden Artikels ist menschliches "Multitasking" sowie die Art und Weise, wie Menschen damit im täglichen Leben umgehen. Der in diesem Beitrag ausgewählte Anwendungsbereich zur näheren Untersuchung dieser Fragestellung ist die Fahrzeugführung, die heutzutage eine besonders wichtige Domäne in der Forschun...

In human-machine-interaction, interruptability and resumption of different tasks are common aspects to influence human performance. To understand human behavior in such situations, we conducted a multitasking experiment where subjects had to perform a test of attention when driving. In this paper, we present an ACT-R/PM model on how people perform...