Development of mental models by display augmentation

An important consideration in the design of any user interface is the relationship between the displayed information and the mental model that results after interaction with the interface. This relationship was investigated in a previous set of eight experiments for a second-order tracking task. Mental models for the task were determined through transfer experiments that forced the operators to apply their mental models to novel situations. The results indicate that, when interacting with displays containing different augmenting cues, the mental models developed are different from each other. The possibility is investigated of representing individual subjects´ mental models of this system as series of rules. An experiment is reported in which the rules are generated from the collected data. Results indicate that the number of rules exhibited and the quality of the rules are dependent on the kind of augmenting cues used during training. More rules were exhibited for those subjects trained on a consistent augmenting cue than those trained on an inconsistent augmenting cue or for those trained in a no-cue control condition