Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that examines internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. It came to be important in technical communication theory in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and contributed to the development of such fields as usability, user-centered design, experience design and interaction design.
#25088
An Accessibility Frontier: Cognitive Disabilities and Learning Difficulties
With this paper... we are primarily concerned with the problems people with cognitive and learning difficulties might have when using the web and offering a few practical suggestions on how these problems might be addressed.
Hudson, Roger, Russ Weakley and Peter Firminger. Usability.com.au (2005). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Cognitive Psychology
#19482
The Big Cocktail: Cognitive and Humanistic Traits of an Information Designer 
This paper describes how our experience in striving to hire Information Designers led us to identify the very basic cognitive and humanistic traits that make up a successful technical communicator. It also shows how, once identified, such traits can be used to unveil hidden potentialities which can help turn a non expert candidate into a successful and gratified Information Designer and communicator. This paper focuses mainly on psychological traits, not on technical skills, that have been extensively discussed in a series of other papers.
Zace, Sokol. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Information Design>User Experience>Cognitive Psychology
#22849
Building Documentation Into the Interface: A Cognitive Theory
As documentation is more and more built directly into the interface, and as technical communicators move into areas of interface design and usability, it is important to have a theoretical framework within which to make decisions about what kind of information should be conveyed at any moment.
Quesenbery, Whitney. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Documentation>User Interface>Cognitive Psychology
#31127
Change Blindness: "You See, But You Do Not Observe"
We can't force people to look at the work we do, but if we want to make them happy, we need to provide them with the information they need in a manner that makes it easy for the top-down mechanisms to work efficiently. It's our job to help them observe, rather than just see.
Rockley Group, The (2008). Articles>Information Design>User Experience>Cognitive Psychology
#21398
Cognitive Psychology and Information Architecture: From Theory to Practice
What do cognitive psychology and information architecture have in common? Actually there is a good deal of common ground between the two disciplines. Certainly, having a background in cognitive psychology supports the practice of information architecture, and it is precisely those interconnections and support that will be explored.
Withrow, Jason and Mark Geljon. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Cognitive Psychology
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Cognitive Strain as a Factor in Effective Document Design 
People have a limited amount of cognitive resources. Coping with the increasing amount of information presented via a software interface strains a user’s cognitive resources. If a person has to use documentation, whether on-line or paper, additional cognitive resources are consumed, often overloading the user. Using several windows or multi-media elements can compound the problem. Unfortunately, as Wickens (1992) states, humans are unable to manage excessive cognitive strain and they respond by getting frustrated, committing errors, shedding tasks, or reverting to known methods.
Albers, Michael J. ACM SIGDOC (1997). Presentations>User Centered Design>Usability>Cognitive Psychology
#22917
Computer-Based Training that Really Communicates
To design and develop effective computer-based training screens, take advantage of visual psychological impact. Treated as a grid, the screen has high and low impact areas, Position the elements of the message to take advantage of these. Use visual cues to create planes and layers for emphasis. Decide on the content types which make up your message. These include concept, principle, process, procedure, and fact. Build screen sequences to make the purpose of the content clear to users. Add application Ievel questions to keep users involved.
Warlum, Michael E. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>Online>Cognitive Psychology
#31094
Jamie Owen explores how we can best utilize cues in our work by understanding how memory, cognitive psychology, and multimedia research affect how information is encoded and retrieved.
Owen, Jamie. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design>Cognitive Psychology
#21291
Designing on Both Sides of Your Brain
There's a natural balance that can be mastered between both intensely imaginative, and passionately logical lines of thought. We need to seek out this synergy to be good at design. The surprising truth is that for designers everywhere, the scientific method can be an extremely powerful tool for finding and evangelizing your great ideas.
Berkun, Scott. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Graphic Design>Methods>Cognitive Psychology
#23710
Examining how Users Interact with Hypermedia Using a Neural Network
Users of hypermedia systems, including the Web, are known to produce distinctive patterns depending upon what it is that they are trying to achieve with the medium. For example, someone who is seeking specific information produces a different browsing pattern than someone who is browsing generally. However, it is also known that people using hypermedia for similar purposes produce similar, but not identical, patterns. Such information would be useful for a browsing aid, since it would enable the better selection of links, for offering to the user, based upon what the user’s task is. This paper describes the architecture and training of a neural network system designed to recognise hypermedia browsing patterns in a prototype hypermedia environment. A further fuzzy-logic based system, which is used to record trends in browsing patterns, is then discussed in outline. Both systems have performed well in small-scale studies, with both real users and simulated-data. Further, both systems have proved robust to the potentially complex behaviour of users. These issues are discussed further.
Mullier, D.J. Proceedings of ICAI (2000). Articles>Usability>Methods>Cognitive Psychology
#14215
One of the looming challenges educators face today is understanding how student diversity and uniqueness impacts the complex process of learning. Affective and conative factors are increasingly examined as we seek to understand how to teach and support the whole learner. The goal is to build theory that informs practice so that we may, as Martinez argues, move beyond “fuzzy, one-size-fi tsall [instructional] solutions” to instruction that is designed to match individual learning needs. Factors such as motivation, self-effi cacy, learning styles, and emotional intelligence have become increasingly common terms in educational research as we seek to defi ne affective and conative variables that impact the learning process as well as design of instruction. However, as with much of educational research, there are a vast number of complex, interrelated variables to consider and no one easy solution.
Kirkley, Jamie and Thomas Duffy. Journal of Computer Documentation (2000). Articles>Education>TC>Cognitive Psychology
#26570
To explore information behavior from a psychological perspective by relating information seeking to personality traits and study approaches. Fast surfing could be related to a surface study approach and emotionality, as well as to low openness to experience and low conscientiousness. Broad scanning was linked to extraversion, openness, and competitiveness, whereas deep diving was a search pattern typical of analytical students with a deep and strategic study approach.
Heinström, Jannica. Journal of Documentation (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Cognitive Psychology
#27669
Formal Objection to WCAG Claiming to Address Cognitive Limitations
Lisa Seeman intends to make a formal objection about WCAG 2.0's claim that they address all requirements for learning difficulties and cognitive limitations, as they do not have the success criteria to back up their claim. Moreover, there are known techniques that WCAG have not included, and people who do intend to cater for people with learning difficulties and cognitive limitations would benefit from knowing of these techniques.
Seeman, Lisa. Juicy Studio (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Cognitive Psychology
#30496
Getting Smart: Ways to Improve Your Intellectual Performance
Today's information developers are often confused by rapidly evolving technology and overwhelmed by the volumes of information they face each day. Although they might well feel that their mental faculties are taxed to the limit, research in cognitive psychology provides new strategies for coping in today's intellectually demanding environment. The purpose of this workshop is to give information developers insight into their intellectual strengths and to introduce strategies that can help them improve their intellectual performance.
Flanders, Alicia. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Information Design>Technology>Cognitive Psychology
#13979
Hot Cogntion: Emotions and Writing Behavior
Although contemporary psychologists generally acknowledge the significance of affect in human experience, few attempts have been made to understand its role in cognitive processes. Important books on cognition barely mention the subject of emotion, feeling, or sentiment. Unlike the strictly cognitive and physiological psycholoúgists, social psychologists are deeply concerned with affect. These psychologists contend that to consider people dispassionate, information processing systems is a poor if not badly inaccurate model of the human being. A positivistic psychology has been too “cold' to carry the entire motivational burden. What is needed is some way to heat up cognition—a theory that unites the cognitively blind but arousing system of affect with the subtle cognitive apparatus. In an otherwise cold-blooded tradition of cognitive science and flow chart intelligence, the idea of hot cognition became a major humanizing counterstatement during the mid 1960s and early 1970s.
Brand, Alice G. JAC (1985). Articles>Rhetoric>Emotions>Cognitive Psychology
#10271
Human Information Processing Correlates of Reading Hypertext
There are a number of systematic relationships between basic measures of cognitive processing and measures of reading performance. The correlational study reported here demonstrates that these same relationships can be observed in the reading of hypertext. In addition, correlations among spatial processing abilities and performance with hypertext support the idea that spatial and relational processing play important roles in reading and using hypertext.
Wegner, Michael J. and David G. Payne. Technical Communication Online (1996). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Hypertext>Cognitive Psychology
#13945
Learnability in Information Design
Design of information used for technical communication of complex products should consider how learnable that information is, and strive to deliver materials that are inherently learnable.The speed of information interchange and the demands of the workplace and school curricula require increasingly minimalist approaches to the material that is made available. People are frustrated by long learning times, and new users of software tools demand rapid absorption of tool capabilities. In addition, many readers of technical information are people for whom English is not their native language.Methods and practices that worked in the period when people were willing to commit to hours of study to understand a topic, or days of practice to master a tool, no longer work in a world based on ?internet time.? To assist our understanding of these trends in learning, this paper addresses three key areas related to learnability: proposing a definition of learnability, showing where learnability and usability intersect, and providing a basis for learnability based on some attributes of human beings.
Haramundanis, Kathy. ACM SIGDOC (2001). Presentations>User Centered Design>Usability>Cognitive Psychology
#25686
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information 
Experiments on the capacity of people to transmit information.
Miller, George A. Psychological Review (1956). Articles>Research>Usability>Cognitive Psychology
#29042
Mapping Language Function in the Brain: A Review of the Recent Literature
Advocates of brain-based learning have argued that instructional methods, to be successful, must be based on an understanding of how the brain processes information. In the past most descriptions of neurocognitive function were largely speculative, relying on theoretical constructions of how we believed the brain to work. Recent advances in functional imaging Positron Emission Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Imaging have, however, opened the brain to empirical study. This article will consider the potential importance of brain study for composition instruction, briefly describe functional imaging techniques, and review the findings of recent brain-mapping studies investigating the neurocognitive systems involved in language function. In short, understanding how language systems are organized in the brain represents the first step in our attempts to create brain-compatible instructional methods in the composition classroom. Following a review of the recent literature, the article will consider the possible implications of this information for pedagogical practice.
Crafton, Robert E. and Elissa Kido. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2000). Articles>Language>Research>Cognitive Psychology
#25776
Mental Models For Search Are Getting Firmer
Users now have precise expectations for the behavior of search. Designs that invoke this mental model but work differently are confusing.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Usability>Search>Cognitive Psychology
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What you buy or 'buy into' influences how you think about something and how you represent that information in your mind is what cognitive scientists refer to as an 'internal representation'. Whether you buy usability services or not, at some point along the way I am sure you will or have encountered 'methodology madness', and maybe you don't even know it.
Spillers, Frank. Demystifying Usability (2004). Articles>Usability>Methods>Cognitive Psychology
#22755
El Movimiento en la Visualización
Desde el principio de la humanidad, la correcta percepción del movimiento ha constituido una rutina importante de la vida cotidiana. También constituye un recurso importante en la visualización.
Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2004). (Spanish) Articles>Usability>Visual Rhetoric>Cognitive Psychology
#24790
My Brain's Not Like Yours: Individual Differences in Visual Processing Styles
The principles of graphic design 'work' for viewers for several reasons. One reason is that well-designed graphics perform significant information-processing functions for viewers. This workshop looks at individual differences in several dimensions of information-processing style (including visual/haptic,field independent/dependent, high/low detail analysis, high/low visual distractibility, and leveling/sharpening in visual memory). It then examines the ability of graphic designs to 'supplant' processing skills for viewers by either captializing on viewer strengths or compensating for their weaknesses.
Ausburn, Floyd B. and Lynna J. Ausburn. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Graphic Design>Visual>Cognitive Psychology
#23213
The Myth of 'Seven, Plus or Minus 2'
This article proposes that the optimal number of menu items cannot be reduced to the generalized 'Magic Seven, Plus or Minus Two' (7±2). The author proposes that instead, when planning a site information architecture, the two most important considerations are breadth versus depth and the display of information.
Kalbach, James. Dr. Dobb's (2002). Articles>Information Design>History>Cognitive Psychology
#27419
Photosensitive epilepsy is a form of epilepsy that is triggered by visual stimuli, such as flickering or high contrast oscillating patterns, and it's believed that around 3% to 5% of people with epilepsy are susceptible to photosensitive material. Photosensitive epilepsy is usually triggered where the flicker rate is between 16Hz to 25Hz, although it's not uncommon for seizures to be triggered by flicker rates between 3Hz to 60Hz. The condition most commonly effects children, and is usually developed between the ages of 9 and 15 years, and most prevalent in females.
Lemon, Gez. Juicy Studio (2006). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Cognitive Psychology
