Expertise, Pattern Management, and Decision Making: Challenges in Human Informatics

摘要

This position paper explores the challenging area of cognition among experts and suggests possible reasons why experts have difficulty explaining how they make decisions in complex and constrained environments. We propose a theory of expertise and decision making that we call the Pattern Management/Mental Reference Frame (PM/MRF) model. The main premise of this theory is that experts use pattern management, including pattern recognition, dynamic pattern matching, and pattern editing to form solutions to complex problems. The theory identifies symmetry, centers of gravity, task reduction, and enhanced mental reference frames as important elements of decision making. The PM/MRF model is compared to other models and frameworks that explain cognition. The paper concludes with a discussion of future challenges in human informatics, including the need for a novel experiment or series of experiments designed to distinguish between various theories and models of cognition, and the challenge to expert systems developers to find novel methods to capture more of experts' decision-making processes in artificial-intelligence systems.