Supporting Perception in the Service of Dynamic Decision Making

Skilled performers in complex environments rely heavily on heuristic strategies to cope with the time pressure and complexity of dynamic tasks. We suggest that the use of task simplification strategies based largely on perception and pattern recognition is fundamental to the novice-expert shift in dynamic decision making. We therefore suggest that interface training interventions should support the development of highly effective and robust heuristic strategies, rather than the development of more abstract, cognitively intensive strategies. A pair of empirical studies are presented that investigated the benefits of training interventions aimed at supporting perceptual and pattern-recognitional activities in dynamic environments. Results suggest that the acquisition of skilled performance in dynamic environments can be accelerated by supporting perceptual activities in the service of dynamic decision making. Implications of these results for training, aiding, and interface design are discussed.