Human information processing in man-machine interaction

Information and information processing are one of the most important aspects of dynamic systems. The term 'information', that is used in various contexts, might better be replaced with one that incorporates novelty, activity and learning. Many important communications of learning systems are non-ergodic. The ergodicity assumption in Shannon's communication theory restricts his and all related concepts to systems that can not learn. For learning systems that interact with their environments, the more primitive concept of 'variety' will have to be used, instead of probability. Humans have a fundamental need for variety: he or she can't permanently perceive the same context, he or she can't do always the same things. The fundamental need for variety leads to a different interpretation of human behaviour that is often classified as "errors". Variety in the relationship between a learning system and his context can be expressed as incongruity. Incongruity is the difference between internal complexity of a learning system and external complexity of the context. Traditional concepts of information processing are models of homeostasis on a basic level without learning. Activity and the learning process are driving forces that cause permanently in-homeostasis in the relationship between a learning system and his context. A suitable model for information processing of learning systems must be conceptualised on a higher level: a homeostatic model of in-homeostasis. A concept to information processing is presented that derives an inverted U-shaped curve between incongruity and information. This concept leads to important design recommendations for man-machine systems.