Using a virtual environment to assess cognition in the elderly

Early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is essential if treatments are to be administered at an earlier point in time before neurons degenerate to a stage beyond repair. In order for early detection to occur tools used to detect the disorder must be sensitive to the earliest of cognitive impairments. Virtual reality technology offers opportunities to provide products which attempt to mimic daily life situations, as much as is possible, within the computational environment. This may be useful for the detection of cognitive difficulties. We develop a virtual simulation designed to assess visuospatial memory in order to investigate cognitive function in a group of healthy elderly participants and those with a mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Participants were required to guide themselves along a virtual path to reach a virtual destination which they were required to remember. The preliminary results indicate that this virtual simulation has the potential to be used for detection of early AD since significant correlations of scores on the virtual environment with existing neuropsychological tests were found. Furthermore, the test discriminated between healthy elderly participants and those with a MCI.     

A kinect-based vocational task prompting system for individuals with cognitive impairments

Difficulties in executing daily living tasks hamper the quality of life of many individuals with cognitive impairments who are otherwise physically mobile. With sufficient and appropriate support on the job, many people with developmental disabilities and cognitive impairments are capable of participating in the world of work to various levels. Kinect is used as assistive technology for individuals with cognitive impairments to achieve the goal of performing task steps independently. In a community-based rehabilitation program under the guidance of three job coaches, a task prompting system called Kinempt was designed to assist four participants involving pre-service food preparation training. The study assessed the effectiveness of Kinempt in terms of precision and recall. A follow-up comparative study then evaluated a baseline method and the system of least prompts against the Kinempt system. Results indicate that for participants with cognitive disabilities, acquisition of job skills may be facilitated by use of Kinempt in conjunction with operant conditioning strategies. Our findings suggest that the image recognition technology may be able to facilitate task prompts needed by people with cognitive impairments. Therefore, the system may be helpful for pre-service training while increasing independence in the process of community integration.     

Cognitive ergonomics for data analysis. Experimental study of cognitive limitations in a data-based judgement task

ABSTRACT

Today’s ever-increasing amount of data places new demands on cognitive ergonomics and requires new design ideas to ensure successful human–data interaction. Our aim was to identify the cognitive factors that must be considered when designing systems to improve decision-making based on large amounts of data. We constructed a task that simulates the typical cognitive demands people encounter in data analysis situations. We demonstrate some essential cognitive limitations using a behavioural experiment with 20 participants. The studied task presented the participants with critical and noncritical attributes that contained information on two groups of people. They had to select the response option (group) with the higher level of critical attributes. The results showed that accuracy of judgement decreased as the amount of information increased, and that judgement was affected by irrelevant information. Our results thus demonstrate critical cognitive limitations when people utilise data and suggest a cognitive bias in data-based decision-making. Therefore, when designing for cognition, we should consider the human cognitive limitations that are manifested in a data analysis context. Furthermore, we need general cognitive ergonomic guidelines for design that support the utilisation of data and improve data-based decision-making.     

Comparison of children’s gaming scores to NEPSY-II scores: Validation of computer games as cognitive tools

This exploratory quantitative study compared schoolchildren’s scores on 15 computer games to their scores on the neuropsychological test, NEPSY-II, to determine whether these games utilize predicted cognitive skills. Forty-three children aged 7–12 from different ethnic groups participated in this study. There was an almost equal split between girls and boys, some of whom reported mild learning difficulties. Many a priori predicted correlations were confirmed, with a medium to high effect. Eleven games shared their highest correlation with one or more of the predicted cognitive skills as measured by the NEPSY-II, which provided evidence that these computer games use specific cognitive functions. This suggests that similar computer games could be used to assess, practice, or monitor cognitive skills among schoolchildren.     

Building a BRIDGE between children and users: a socio-cultural approach to child–computer interaction

The field of child–computer interaction has received growing attention as a result of the penetration of IT into children’s everyday lives. Consequently, the involvement of children in the design of children’s technology has been widely discussed. So far, literature on children’s involvement in design has mainly treated design with children as a distinct design discipline regarding children as “cognitive incomplete” in comparison with adult users. With a point of departure in the framework of socio-cultural activity theory, this paper provides a new perspective on design with children, based on understanding children as participants in meaningful communities of practices. Thus, we argue that children could and should be involved in design on the same terms as adult users; children are treated as experts in their everyday lives and we cannot design future IT for children without involving these experts. The paper introduces the BRIDGE method including a palette of design techniques as a practice-based method for designing with children based on this perspective.     

Internet adoption by the elderly: employing IS technology acceptance theories for understanding the age-related digital divide

Information technology (IT) allows members of the growing elderly population to remain independent longer. However, while technology becomes more and more pervasive, an age-related underutilisation of IT remains observable. For instance, elderly people (65 years of age and older) are significantly less likely to use the Internet than the average population (see, for instance, European Commission, 2011). This age-related digital divide prevents many elderly people from using IT to enhance their quality of life through tools, such as Internet-based service delivery. Despite the significance of this phenomenon, the information systems (IS) literature lacks a comprehensive consideration and explanation of technology acceptance in general and more specifically, Internet adoption by the elderly. This paper thus studies the intentions of the elderly with regard to Internet use and identifies important influencing factors. Four alternative models based on technology acceptance theory are tested in the context of comprehensive survey data. As a result, a model that explains as much as 84% of the variance in technology adoption among the elderly is developed. We discuss the contribution of our analyses to the research on Internet adoption (and IT adoption in general) by the elderly, on the digital divide, and on technology acceptance and identify potentially effective paths for future research and theoretical development.     

Using cognitive task analysis to explore issues in the procurement of intelligent decision support systems

Government statistics and various news reports suggest that upwards of half of all large-scale information technology (IT) development projects fail to meet expectations for facilitating cognitive work. Many of the failures point to the neglect of human-centering considerations during the development of sociotechnical systems. The groups of people who create IT themselves constitute a sociotechnical system. Therefore, laws of cognitive work apply to the cognitive work of IT development, and these laws include the “reductive tendency” for people to form simplified understandings when confronted with domains of dynamics and complexity. In this article, we report a study in which we “turned the tables” on IT systems development. Rather than using cognitive task analysis to study some work domain for which an envisioned IT system would be developed, we used cognitive task analysis to study the work domain of IT systems development itself. Through documentation analysis and critical decision method procedures, we sought to reveal specific challenges with regard to human-centering, and ways in which principles, methods, and tools of ergonomics (human factors, cognitive systems engineering) might help the developers of IT systems better address the human and social aspects of cognitive work. The findings highlight the outstanding challenges and barriers to the procurement and development of usable, useful, and understandable IT for sociotechnical systems. Challenges include the following: the need for better coordination mechanisms; the need to locate cognitive systems engineers, as advocates for workers, in key leadership roles; the need to reconceive concepts and methods of requirements and requirements specification; and the need for better negotiation of the trade-offs of cost/schedule considerations with human-centering considerations.

Information technology and the search for organizational agility: A systematic review with future research possibilities

Organizations are increasingly turning to information technology (IT) to help them respond to unanticipated environmental threats and opportunities. In this paper, we introduce a systematic review of the literature on IT-enabled agility, helping to establish the boundary between what we know and what we don’t know. We base our review on a wide body of literature drawn from the AIS Basket of Eight IT journals, a cross-section of non-Basket journals, IT practitioner outlets, and premier international IS conferences. We review the use of different theoretical lenses used to investigate the relationship between IT and organizational agility and how the literature has conceptualized agility, its antecedents, and consequences. We also map the evolution of the literature through a series of stages that highlight how researchers have built on previous work. Lastly, we discuss opportunities for future research in an effort to close important gaps in our understanding.     

Governing industrial organizations through cognitive machines

Recently, researchers on organization theory and behavior were challenged by the introduction of cognitive machines in the list of the organization’s participants. Researchers in this field advocated that cognitive machines contribute to improve cognitive abilities in the organization by extending people’s rationality and decision-making capacity and by reducing intra-individual and group dysfunctional conflicts. This paper supports these findings and extends their results to upper layers at managerial and organizational levels of application by proposing the concept of new industrial organizations with structure and processes of Computational Organization Management Networks. In such a new organization type, cognitive machines and cognitive information systems are prominent actors of governance, automation, and control of the whole enterprise.     

审美心理下的情感化产品设计——产品是生活的情感与记忆的寄托

在科学技术与经济文化高度发展的驱使下,人们对产品的审美心理产生了变化,美的东西也许不仅仅是线条优美或色彩丰富,它的价值已经体现在我们赋予他的功能上,更重要的是人们生活情感与记忆的寄托。人们之间的交流越来越少,情感这个人与人之间沟通的重要通道已经越来越狭窄。所以现在我们在寻找更适合现代人们审美心理下的产品设计。他会是怎样的?未来的产品设计会不会融入治疗的作用?这都需要我们来创造。     

The state of cognitive systems engineering

The widespread introduction of the personal computer, beginning about 1970, helped spawn the field of inquiry called cognitive engineering, which concerns itself with such things as interface design and user friendliness. Since then, this field has taught us many important things, including two major lessons. First, the road to user-hostile systems is paved with designers' user-centered intentions. Even smart, clever, well-intentioned people can build fragile, hostile devices that force the human to adapt and build local kludges and workarounds. Worse still, even if you are aware of this trap, you will still fall into it. Second, technology developers must strive to build truly human-centered systems. Machines should adapt to people, not the other way around. Machines should empower people. The process of designing machines should leverage what we know about human cognitive, perceptual, and collaborative skills.     

Entrainment and musicality in the human system interface

What constitutes our human capacity to engage and be in the same frame of mind as another human? How do we come to share a sense of what ‘looks good’ and what ‘makes sense’? How do we handle differences and come to coexist with them? How do we come to feel that we understand what someone else is experiencing? How are we able to walk in silence with someone familiar and be sharing a peaceful space? All of these aspects are part of human ‘interaction’. In designing interactive technologies designers have endeavoured to explicate, analyse and simulate, our capacity for social adaptation. Their motivations are mixed and include the desires to improve efficiency, improve consumption, to connect people, to make it easier for people to work together, to improve education and learning. In these endeavours to explicate, analyse and simulate, there is a fundamental human capacity that is beyond technology and that facilitates these aspects of being, feeling and thinking with others. That capacity, we suggest, is human entrainment. This is our ability to coordinate the timing of our behaviours and rhythmically synchronise our attentional resources. Expressed within the movements of our bodies and voices, it has a quality that is akin to music. In this paper, disparate domains of research such as pragmatics, social psychology, behaviourism, cognitive science, computational linguistics, gesture, are brought together, and considered in light of the developments in interactive technology, in order to shape a conceptual framework for understanding entrainment in everyday human interaction.     

Virtual user models for the elderly and disabled for automatic simulated accessibility and ergonomy evaluation of designs

This paper presents a framework for automatic simulated accessibility and ergonomy testing of virtual prototypes of products using virtual user models. The proposed virtual user modeling framework describes virtual humans focusing on the elderly and people with disabilities. Geometric, kinematic, physical, behavioral and cognitive aspects of the user affected by possible disabilities are examined, in order to create virtual user models able to represent people with various functional limitations. Hierarchical task and interaction models are introduced, in order to describe the user’s capabilities at multiple levels of abstraction. The use of alternative ways of a user task’s execution, exploiting different modalities and assistive devices, is supported by the proposed task analysis. Experimental results on the accessibility and ergonomy evaluation of different workplace designs for the use of a telephone and a stapler show how the proposed framework can be put into practice and demonstrate its significant potential.     

Providing adaptive smartphone interfaces targeted at elderly people: an approach that takes into account diversity among the elderly

The growth of the elderly population in many countries makes it necessary to develop appropriate technologies for them. These include mobile phones, as they are increasingly becoming cheaper and more widespread. Furthermore, many families would like their elderly relatives to use this technology as a means of fostering digital inclusion. However, the current designs for mobile devices software are aimed at a young audience, rather than taking account of the different needs of the elderly. The elderly population can be characterized by their wide diversity which can be attributed to decades of varied experiences. Moreover, this is heightened by sharp differences in acquired education levels, use of technology at work, cognitive skills and physical dexterity. The authors believe that this diversity is even more striking in developing countries, such as Brazil, since in these countries a huge economic gap still exists between different elderly people. This paper seeks to investigate: (1) What can be done to solve the problem of enabling the elderly to use smartphone interfaces and (2) how one should develop adaptive smartphone interfaces that can be targeted to the elderly. With this in mind, this paper shows how a prototyped platform was implemented and evaluated. It is worth stressing that real-life experiments with Brazilian elderly people were carried out. The results suggested that there had been a reduction in the interaction time as well as a significant increase in user satisfaction.     

Shiftwork experience,age and cognitive performance

Changes of alertness and cognitive efficiency has been suggested in people whose circadian rhythms are disrupted, e.g. night or shift-workers. Data from field and laboratory studies have demonstrated short-term cognitive disturbances related to circadian rhythm disruption. By contrast, little is known about the long-term consequences of chronic sleep deprivation, as can be observed with shift-work, on cognitive abilities. The present paper is aimed at evaluating, on a large cross-sectional sample of workers, the long-term influence of shift-work on verbal memory and speed performances. Participants were 3237 workers aged 32, 42, 52, and 62 years of various occupational statuses included in the VISAT (Aging, Health and Work) cohort. Data collected by questionnaires included items on working hours and shift-work and sleep disorders. Cognitive abilities were assessed using neuropsychological tests. Current male shift-workers had lower cognitive performance than never exposed workers. In the same population, memory performance tended to decrease with increasing shift-work duration. Among former shift-workers, the cognitive performance of the participant having stopped shiftwork more than 4 years ago seemed to be increased, suggesting a possible reversibility of effects. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that cognitive functioning tends to be impaired by a long-term exposure to SW. As found by other authors, neuropsychological performance tends to decrease with the increases in the duration of exposure to SW.     

Shiftwork experience, age and cognitive performance

Changes of alertness and cognitive efficiency has been suggested in people whose circadian rhythms are disrupted, e.g. night or shift-workers. Data from field and laboratory studies have demonstrated short-term cognitive disturbances related to circadian rhythm disruption. By contrast, little is known about the long-term consequences of chronic sleep deprivation, as can be observed with shift-work, on cognitive abilities. The present paper is aimed at evaluating, on a large cross-sectional sample of workers, the long-term influence of shift-work on verbal memory and speed performances. Participants were 3,237 workers aged 32, 42, 52, and 62 years of various occupational statuses included in the VISAT (Aging, Health and Work) cohort. Data collected by questionnaires included items on working hours and shift-work and sleep disorders. Cognitive abilities were assessed using neuropsychological tests. Current male shift-workers had lower cognitive performance than never exposed workers. In the same population, memory performance tended to decrease with increasing shift-work duration. Among former shift-workers, the cognitive performance of the participant having stopped shiftwork more than 4 years ago seemed to be increased, suggesting a possible reversibility of effects. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that cognitive functioning tends to be impaired by a long-term exposure to SW. As found by other authors, neuropsychological performance tends to decrease with the increases in the duration of exposure to SW.     

The cognitive impact of interactive design features for learning complex materials in medical education

To identify the most effective way for medical students to interact with a browser-based learning module on the symptoms and neurological underpinnings of stroke syndromes, this study manipulated the way in which subjects interacted with a graphical model of the brain and examined the impact of functional changes on learning outcomes. It was hypothesized that behavioral interactions that were behaviorally more engaging and which required deeper consideration of the model would result in heightened cognitive interaction and better learning than those whose manipulation required less deliberate behavioral and cognitive processing. One hundred forty four students were randomly assigned to four conditions whose model controls incorporated features that required different levels of behavioral and cognitive interaction: Movie (low behavioral/low cognitive, n = 40), Slider (high behavioral/low cognitive, n = 36), Click (low behavioral/high cognitive, n = 30), and Drag (high behavioral/high cognitive, n = 38). Analysis of Covariates (ANCOVA) showed that students who received the treatments associated with lower cognitive interactivity (Movie and Slider) performed better on a transfer task than those receiving the module associated with high cognitive interactivity (Click and Drag, partial eta squared = .03). In addition, the students in the high cognitive interactivity conditions spent significantly more time on the stroke locator activity than other conditions (partial eta squared = .36). The results suggest that interaction with controls that were tightly coupled with the model and whose manipulation required deliberate consideration of the model's features may have overtaxed subjects' cognitive resources. Cognitive effort that facilitated manipulation of content, though directed at the model, may have resulted in extraneous cognitive load, impeding subjects in recognizing the deeper, global relationships in the materials. Instructional designers must, therefore, keep in mind that the way in which functional affordances are integrated with the content can shape both behavioral and cognitive processing, and has significant cognitive load implications.     

Cognitive technology and the pragmatics of impossible plans — A study in cognitive prosthetics

Do AI programs just make it quicker and easier for humans to do what they can do already, or can the range of do-able things be extended? This paper suggests that cognitively-oriented technology can make it possible for humans to construct and carry out mental operations, which were previously impossible. Probable constraints upon possible human mental operations are identified and the impact of cognitive technology upon them is evaluated. It is argued that information technology functions as a cognitive prosthetic enhancing human intelligence and planning capabilities. Boundaries and constraints which Kant, Whorf, and many post-modernist theorists have seen as intrinsic to human cognition now cease to apply.     

Enhancing human indoor cognitive map development and wayfinding performance with immersive augmented reality-based navigation systems

Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience where computer-generated perceptual information is superimposed into the real-world environment. Most existing research in AR-based wayfinding has focused on the technological aspects of developing AR-based software or devices to realize navigation. No previous investigations have focused on understanding the impact of immersive augmented reality (IAR)–based systems on human wayfinding performance from the cognitive perspective. Aimed at investigating the influence of IAR-based systems on people’s cognitive map development and their subsequent wayfinding performance as well as the effect of using three-dimensional (3D) layout models in IAR environments in addition to superimposed guideposts, an experiment was carried out in a building with a complex floor plan. A total of 54 university students were evenly divided into three groups: a control group with no IAR assistance, a second group using an IAR-based navigation system that includes only superimposed guideposts, and a third group using an IAR-based navigation system that includes both guideposts and a 3D layout model. Each participant was asked to conduct a spatial exploration task in the environment, sketch a floor map based on their spatial cognition, and perform a wayfinding task to find eight specific locations in the building. An analysis of the participants’ performance and responses to a number of self-evaluation questionnaires collected in the experiment indicates that IAR technology can help people develop their cognitive maps more effectively and can substantially improve their wayfinding performance with a much lower workload. A second finding is that adding a 3D layout model can enhance the effect of an IAR-based navigation system in terms of cognitive map development. The findings from this research extend the existing knowledge about IAR-based navigation and further verify that AR technology has the potential to reduce human workload for cognitive tasks. The results also could support its more effective application in various scenarios that require assisted wayfinding and cognitive map training, such as emergency evacuation drills.     

Design für Kostentransparenz in Anlageberatungsgespr?chen

Investment advisory services of financial service providers (FSPs) exhibit several characteristics that are detrimental to advisory quality. The interaction of advisor and client is strained by a lack of transparency regarding the advisory process (what activities are performed and why) and the information used therein (what information is used for what purpose and with what effect), as well as regarding the precise costs of the service and the recommended products. In prior research, we suggested that process and information transparency issues may be appropriately addressed with collaborative information technology (IT) artifacts. In this paper, we argue that collaborative, transparent artifacts may also be a premise of enabling cost transparency. To this end, we describe a complete research cycle of designing, implementing, and evaluating a shared cost-transparent IT artifact to support client-advisor interaction in investment advisory encounters. Evaluation results suggest the efficacy of our design in improving the clients?? perceived cost transparency as well as increase their satisfaction and their willingness to pay for the received investment advice. These findings may also challenge the common belief of FSPs that transparent, fee-based advisory services would neither be accepted by clients nor be economically viable. Practical implications of these findings for designing advisory encounters with supportive IT are discussed.