Software requirements specification from a cognitive psychology perspective

A description is given of the results of an empirical study of the early tasks of software development. Using these and analogous results from other studies, the authors draw on cognitive psychology theory to argue that part of the reason for the technology-transfer problem is a mismatch between the cognitive processes currently used by engineers and the cognitive processes actually required to make effective use of the tools. A cognitive model is presented that describes how engineers accomplish certain development tasks.<>