Cognitive Engineering

The primary aim of designing experiments in Cognitive Engineering is to figure out what we do not know. Designing experiments help to develop an understanding of the situation or task at hand. This helps to also make sense of issues pertaining to the field of which might be unknown to the Cognitive Engineer and to understand the decisions made during the design phase of an engineering project.

The purpose of the Cognitive Engineer to develop these experiments, would have to be determined by higher management. There could be several reasons to. The first and probably the most reasonable intent, would be to better the performance of a project, and even so, performance can be measured in various forms. What are the measures that would determine the experiments focus. (i.e. Time to accomplish a specific task, Number of tasks accomplished.) Other measurements could include cognition measurements. Speed of learning, speed of decision making. Some tangible, some intangible. Intangible issues still need to be measured using quantatative methods in order to be of reasonable use, this can often be non-trivial.

Pointers that help in developing good experiments include,

1) Asking the right questions during interview of project team.
2) Selecting and limiting the right choice of test subjects.
3) Pre-determining exact experimental outputs and result goals.
4) Avoiding unintended systematic differences in conditions that explain data.
5) Controlling experiments using limited variables.
6) Encouraging generalizability of findings while balancing control.

Each point is delibrately succient to keep entry short but can be elaborated in greater detail in future.