Input and output channel with

memory
 Input – Output Channels
• Input and Output
– A person’s interaction with the outside world
occurs through information being received and
sent- Input and output
 In an interaction with a computer the user receives
information that is output by the computer,
and responds by providing input to the computer – the
user’s output becomes the computer’s input and vice versa.
 Input & output in Human
• Input in the human occurs mainly through the
senses .
• output through the motor control of the
effectors
 ……
There are five major senses:
• Sight
• hearing
• touch
• taste
• smell.
• Of these, the first three are the most
important to HCI
 …
Similarly there are a number of effectors
• limbs
• fingers
• Eyes
• head
• vocal system
 …..
• In the interaction with the computer, the
fingers play the primary role, through typing
or mouse control.
• with some use of voice, and eye, head and
body position.
• Imagine using a personal computer (PC) with
a mouse and a keyboard.
• The application you are using has a graphical
interface, with menus, icons and windows
In your interaction with the Computer
• you receive information primarily by sight
( what appears on the screen)
• you may also receive information by ear
(computer beep to draw your attention)
• Touch plays a part too in that you will feel the
orientation of the mouse
 Vision
• Human Vision it is the primary source of
information for the average person.
• We can roughly divide visual perception into
two stages: Visual Perception
Physical reception
Processing and
of the stimulus
interpretation of
from the outside that stimulus
world
Stimulus is
anything that
causes respond.
 Vision – The Eye
• Eye - receives light and transforms it to electrical
energy and then transmitted to the brain.

• Components of Eye
– Cornea
– Lens
– Retina
• Rods
• Cones
 Vision – The Eye
• Light passes through the front of the eye
(cornea) to the lens.
• The cornea and the lens help to focus the
light rays onto the back of the eye (retina).
• The cells in the retina absorb and convert
the light to electrochemical impulses which
are transferred along the optic nerve and
then to the brain.
 Vision – The Eye
Rods Cones
• First type of receptor • Second type of receptor
• Highly sensitive to light • Less sensitive to light
• Doesn’t tolerate more light • Tolerate more light
• 120 million rods per eye • 6 million cones per eye
• Dominate peripheral vision • Allows colour vision
• Temporary blindness • 3 types of cones according
to the wavelength of the
light (blue, red and green)
Vision – The Eye
 Two stages in vision
1. Physical Perception

• Vision begins with light.

• The eye is a mechanism for receiving light and
transforming it into electrical energy.
• Light is reflected from objects in the world
and their image is focused upside- down on
retina.
• The receptors in the eye transform it into
electrical signals which are passed to the
brain.
 ….
• retina contains rods for low light vision and
cones for colour vision
• The retina also has specialized nerve cells
called ganglion cells (brain!) detect pattern
and movement
 2. Interpreting the signal
• Perceiving size and depth (First factor)
How the eyes perceive, size ,depth and
relative distance?
• We know that reflected light from the object
forms an upside-down image on the retina.
• The size of that image is specified as a visual
angle
 ….
How to calculate visual angle?
• If we were to draw a line from the top of the
object to a central point on the front of the
eye and a second line from the bottom of the
object to the same point, the visual angle of
the object is the angle between these two
lines.
• Visual angle is affected by both the size of the
object and its distance from the eye.
 …..

The visual angle measurement is given in either degrees or minutes of arc,

where 1 degree is equivalent to 1 minute of arc to 60 seconds of arc.
 ….
• if the visual angle of an object i.e. the degree of
arc is too small we will be unable to perceive it at
all.
• Visual acuity is the ability of a person to perceive
fine detail.
• Generally for eye testing in labs they will test for
visual acuity for Normal vision.
• For example, a person with normal vision can
detect a single line if it has a visual angle of 0.5
seconds of arc
 …..
• Perceiving brightness (second factor)
• Brightness is in fact a subjective reaction to
levels of light.
• It is affected by luminance which is the amount
of light emitted by an object.
• The luminance of an object is dependent on the
amount of light falling on the object’s surface
and its reflective properties.
• Luminance is a physical characteristic and can
be measured using a photometer.
 …
Perceiving color (third factor)
• Color is usually regarded as being made up of
three components: hue, intensity and
saturation.
• Hue is determined by the spectral wavelength
of the light.
• Blues have short wavelengths
• greens medium
• reds long.
 …
• Intensity is the brightness of the color, and
saturation is the amount of whiteness in the
color.
• The eye perceives color because the cones are
sensitive to light of different wavelengths.
• There are three different types of cone, each
sensitive to a different color (blue, green and
red).
 The capabilities and limitations of visual processing

• Visual processing involves the transformation

and interpretation of a complete image, from
the light that is thrown onto the retina.
• As we have already noted, our expectations
affect the way an image is perceived.
• For example, if we know that an
object(Elephant) is a particular size, we will
perceive it as that size no matter how far it is
from us.
 …
• This ability to interpret and exploit our
expectations can be used to resolve ambiguity.
For example, consider the image

What do you perceive?

It’s an Ambiguous shape

It depends on the context
Muller – Lyer illusion

Which line is longer?

 …..
• Most people when presented with this will say
that the top line is longer than the bottom.
• In fact, the two lines are the same length.
• This may be due to the top line appears like a
concave edge, the bottom like a convex edge.
 Here the top line
appears longer, owing to Ponzo illusion
the distance effect,
although both lines are
the same length

These illusions
demonstrate that our
perception of size is not
completely reliable.
 Is this text correct?

Another illusion created by our expectations compensating an image is the

proof reading illusion
 ….
• Most people reading this rapidly will read it
correctly, although closer inspection shows
that the word ‘the’ is repeated in the second
and third line.
• These are just a few examples of how the
visual system compensates, and sometimes
overcompensates, to allow us to perceive the
world around us.
 Design Focus
Optical illusions highlight the differences
between the way things are and the way we
perceive them .
And in interface design we need to be aware
that we will not always perceive things exactly
as they are.
 Reading
• There are several stages in the reading
process.
• First, the visual pattern of the word on the
page is perceived.
• Second is decoded with reference to an
internal representation of language.
• Third is syntactic and semantic analysis and
operate on phrases or sentences.
 …..
• Adults read approximately 250 words a
minute.
• The speed at which text can be read is a
measure of its legibility. ----> Thelivu
• Experiments have shown that standard font
sizes of 9 to 12 points are equally legible,
given proportional spacing between lines.
• Similarly line lengths of between 2.3 and 5.2
inches (58 and 132 mm) are equally legible
 ….
• A final word about the use of contrast in visual
display: a negative contrast (dark characters
on a light screen) provides higher luminance
and, therefore, increased acuity, than a
positive contrast.
• This will in turn increase legibility.
 Hearing
• The sense of hearing is often considered
secondary to sight, but we tend to
underestimate the amount of information that
we receive through our ears.
• Just as vision begins with light, hearing begins
with vibrations in the air or sound waves.
• The ear receives these vibrations and
transmits them, through various stages, to the
auditory nerves.
 The human ear
• The ear comprises three sections
• outer ear
• middle ear
• inner ear.
• The outer ear is the visible part of the ear. It
has two parts.
Pinna
auditory canal
 ….
• The outer ear serves two purposes.
• First, it protects the sensitive middle ear from
damage.
• The auditory canal contains wax which prevents
dust, dirt and insects reaching the middle ear.
• It also maintains the middle ear at a constant
temperature.
• Secondly, the pinna and auditory canal serve to
amplify some sounds.
 …….
• The middle ear is a small cavity connected to
the outer ear by ear drum, and to the inner
ear by the cochlea.
• Within the cavity are the ossicles, the smallest
bones in the body.
• Sound waves pass along the auditory canal and
vibrate the ear drum which in turn vibrates the
ossicles, which transmit the vibrations to the
cochlea, and so into the inner ear.
 …..
• This ‘relay’ is required because,
• outer and middle ears are filled with air, the
inner ear is filled with a denser cochlean liquid.
• If passed directly from the air to the liquid, the
transmission of the sound waves would be
poor.
• By transmitting them via the ossicles the sound
waves are concentrated and amplified.
 …..
• The waves are passed into the liquid-filled
cochlea in the inner ear.
• Within the cochlea there is cilia that bend
because of the vibrations in the cochlean
liquid and release a chemical transmitter
which causes impulses in the auditory nerve.
 Processing Sound
• Sound is changes or vibrations in air pressure
• The human ear can hear frequencies from
about 20 Hz to 15 kHz.
• Pitch is the frequency of the sound.
– A low frequency produces a low pitch
– A high frequency produces a high pitch.
• Loudness is proportional to the amplitude of
the sound; the frequency remains constant.
• Timbre relates to the type of the sound:
 Sound
Pitch
1 Frequency
of the
sound.

Timbre

Type of 2
the
sound
Loudness
proportional to
3 the amplitude of
the sound
 Touch
• The third and last of the senses that we will
consider is touch or haptic perception.
• Touch provides us with vital information about our
environment.
• The apparatus of touch differs from that of sight and
hearing in that it is not localized.
• We receive stimuli through the skin.
 …
• The skin contains three types of sensory
receptor:
• thermoreceptors respond to heat and cold
• nociceptors respond to intense pressure, heat
and pain
• mechanoreceptors respond to pressure.
• we are concerned with mechanoreceptors in
relation to human–computer interaction
 ….
• There are two kinds of mechanoreceptor,
which respond to different types of pressure.
• Rapidly adapting mechanoreceptors- These
receptors react more quickly with increased pressure.

• Slowly adapting mechanoreceptors- respond to

continuously applied pressure.
 ……
• Although the whole of the body contains such
receptors, some areas have greater sensitivity
or acuity than others.
• It is possible to measure the acuity of different
areas of the body using the two-point
threshold test
two-point threshold test

Adjustable 2-point caliper

 …
• When you can feel two points, measure the
distance between them.
• The greater the distance, the lower the
sensitivity.
• You can repeat this test on different parts of
your body
 kinesthesis
• A second aspect of haptic perception is kinesthesis:
• Awareness of the position of the body and limbs.
• This is due to receptors in the joints.
• Again there are three types:
• rapidly adaptingwhich respond when a limb is moved
in a particular direction
• slowly adaptingwhich respond to both movement
and static position
• positional receptorswhich only respond when a limb
is in a static position.
 …..
• This perception affects both comfort and
performance.
• For example, for a touch typist, awareness of
the relative positions of the fingers and
feedback from the keyboard are very
important.
 Realtime Scenario
• E-commerce has become very successful in
some areas of sales, such as travel services,
books and CDs, and food. However, in some
retail areas, such as clothes shopping, e-
commerce has been less successful. Why?
 ….
• With clothes, the experience of shopping is far
more important.
• We need to be able to handle the goods
• feel the texture of the material
• check the weight to test quality.
• Even if we know that something will fit us we
still want to be able to handle it before
buying.
Research into haptic interaction is looking
at ways of solving this problem.
• For example, a demonstration environment
called TouchCity allows people to walk around
a virtual shopping mall, pick up products and
feel their texture and weight.
• A key problem with the commercial use of
such an application, however, is that the
haptic experience requires expensive
hardware not yet available to the average e-
shopper
Human
MEMORY
 Let’s define memory…

•is an ability to store, retain, and

recall information and
experiences.
•is our ability to encode, store,
retain and subsequently recall
information and past
experiences in the
human brain.
 TYPES OF MEMORY
• Memory actually takes many
• different forms. We know that
• when we store a memory,
• we are storing information. But,
• what that information is and
• how long we retain it determines
• what type of memory it is.
• The biggest categories of memory
• are short-term memory (or working memory) and long-term
memory, based on the amount of time the memory is stored.
 Storage: Retaining
Information
Storage is at the heart of memory.
Three stores of memory are shown
below:
Sensory Working Long-term
Memory Memory Memory

Encoding

Events
Encoding Retrieval

Retrieval
 *Sensory Memory
-is the shortest-term element of memory.
-The ability to look at an item for a second
and then remember what it looked like.
-It is processed approximately 200-500
milliseconds after an item is perceived.
 Sensory Memories
The duration of sensory memory varies
for the different senses.

Iconic
0.5 sec. long

Echoic
3-4 sec. long

Hepatic
< 1 sec. long
 Sensory Memory

Sensory Working Long-term

Memory Memory Memory

Encoding

Events
Encoding Retrieval

Retrieval
 *Short-term Memory (Working Memory)

• Short-term or working
memory is the brief
time of keeping
something in mind
before dismissing it or
pushing it into long-
term memory. The
hippocampus and
subiculum store short-
term memories.
 Chunking
The capacity of the working memory
may be increased by “chunking.”

F-B-I-T-W-A-C-I-A-I-B-M

FBI TWA CIA

IBM
4 chunks
 Duration
Peterson and Peterson (1959) measured
the duration of working memory by
manipulating rehearsal.
CHJ
547
MKT
544 CH??
HIJ
541
547 …

The duration of the working memory is

about 20 sec.
 Working Memory

Sensory Working Long-term

Memory Memory Memory

Encoding

Events
Encoding Retrieval

Retrieval
 *Long-Term Memory
-Is the ability to store more information for long
periods of time (life times) like phone numbers,
names and address’ from when we were kids.
-long-term memory can store much larger
quantities of information for potentially
unlimited duration (sometimes a whole life
span). Its capacity is immeasurably large.
- Long-term memory is often divided into two
further main types: explicit (or declarative)
memory and implicit (or procedural) memory.
Types of Long-Term Memory

 Explicit (declarative) memory (facts): factual knowledge &

personal experiences
Types:
> episodic memory
>semantic memory

 Implicit (procedural) Memory (skills): Long-term memories

of conditioned responses and learned skills, e.g., driving
1. Declarative/explicit memory (“knowing
what”)

refers to those memories that can be

consciously recalled.

>It is sometimes called explicit memory,

since it consists of information that is
explicitly stored and retrieved, although it is
more properly a subset of explicit memory.

>Declarative memory can be further sub-

divided into episodic memory and
semantic memory.
1.1 Episodic Memory
> represents our memory of
experiences and specific events in time in
a serial form, from which we can reconstruct
the actual events.

 Personal experiences linked with specific times

and places

 serial memory of events

 1.2 Semantic Memory
>on the other hand, is a more
structured record of facts, meanings,
concepts and knowledge about the
external world that can be described and
applied..

 Impersonal facts and everyday knowledge

– structured memory of facts, concepts, skills

2. Procedural memory (“knowing how”)

>is the unconscious memory of skills and

how to do things, particularly the use of
objects or movements of the body, such as
playing a guitar or riding a bike.

Procedural memory is sometimes referred to

as implicit memory, because previous
experiences and conscious awareness of these
previous experiences,
 Long-Term Memory

Sensory Working Long-term

Memory Memory Memory

Encoding

Events
Encoding Retrieval

Retrieval
 Memory Retrieval
Once information has been encoded and
stored in memory, it must be retrieved
in order to be used. There are four basic
ways in which information can be pulled
from long-term memory

• Recall
• Recollection
• Recognition
• Relearning
 Memory Recall/Retrieval
*Retrieval, recall or recollection (calling
back the stored information in response
to some cue for use in a process or
activity)
previously encoded and stored in the
brain.

*During recall, the brain "replays" a

pattern of neural activity that was
originally generated in response to a
particular event,
Why Do We Forget? Five Key Theories

• Decay
• Interference
• Motivated Forgetting
• Encoding Failure
• Retrieval Failure
Five Theories of Forgetting (Continued)

1. Decay Theory:
memory degrades with time
2. Interference Theory: one memory
competes (interferes) with another
– Retroactive Interference (new information
interferes with old)
– Proactive Interference (old information
interferes with new)
 Five Theories of Forgetting (Continued)

3. Motivated Forgetting: motivation to forget

unpleasant, painful, threatening, or
embarrassing memories
4. Encoding Failure: information in STM is not
encoded in LTM
5. Retrieval Failure: memories stored in LTM
are momentarily inaccessible (tip-of-the-
tongue phenomenon)
 Forgetting: Memory Failure
• prospective memory
– remembering to do something in the future
content – remembering what to do
timing – remembering when to do it
– absentmindedness
• amnesia
– anterograde amnesia
inability to store new information and events
– retrograde amnesia
inability to retrieve past information and events
>age factor
>brain injury etc…
 THE
END 