Citation

Lind M. Cogn. Technol. Work 2003; 5(2): 67-81.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10111-002-0109-4

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The paper discusses the abstraction hierarchy proposed by Rasmussen [(1986) Information processing and human-machine interaction, North-Holland] for design of human-machine interfaces for supervisory control. The purpose of the abstraction hierarchy is to represent a work domain by multiple levels of means-end and part-whole abstractions. It is argued in the paper that the abstraction hierarchy suffers from both methodological and conceptual problems. A cluster of selected problems are analyzed and illustrated by concrete examples from the power plant domain. It is concluded that the semantics of the means-end levels and their relations are vaguely defined and therefore should be improved by making more precise distinctions. Furthermore, the commitment to a fixed number of levels of means-end abstractions should be abandoned and more attention given to the problem of level identification in the model-building process. It is also pointed out that attempts to clarify the semantics of the abstraction hierarchy will invariably reduce the range of work domains where it can be applied.

Language: en