Hi everyone, I just wanted to pop up from lurking to ask a question. It seems to me that a good start to the complexity issue would be to measure it. So, for example, get two groups of people and present group A with a nominally complex task and group B with a task that is supposedly more complex and measure their performance. Here in the states group A could fill out a 1040ez tax form and group B could fill out the 1040A.
Is there research along these lines? It seems like this would allow for study of ways to reduce complexity. Group A would always be given the 1040ez and group B would be given variations on the 1040A to study how to make the thing more or less complex. ----- Original Message ---- From: Derek M Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Miguel Pessoa Monteiro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: [email protected] Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 7:34:55 AM Subject: Re: What is complexity? Miguel, > I'm new to this list. I do research in software engineering (SE), with a > focus on > aspect-oriented software development. I subscribed this list in the hope of > obtaining answers to various questions/doubts regarding how human mind works. > > To explain it briefly, I would like to know what (cognitive) psychology has > to say > about concepts related to the human mind that are important for SE. Typical > examples > include complexity, generalisation and abstraction, though in time I hope to > cover a > few others. I had the same aim when I started writing a book a while ago. After quiet a bit of reading I cam to the conclusion that cognitive psychology has not yet reached the stage where it is in a position to start to answer this question. You can download various material I have written on the topic at: www.knosof.co.uk/cbook > A first topic I would like to bring this list, if I may, is about complexity. > The > concept is constantly brought about in SE (and I'm sure in many other fields). Complexity is certainly a key issue. See Sweller's work on cognitive load. A good collection of links is available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_load Also see Jacob Feldman's papers on Categorization and concept learning http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/~jacob/papers.html I don't know of any worthwhile SE papers (all of which tend to wave their hands claiming that the described techniques reduce complexity). -- Derek M. Jones tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667 Knowledge Software Ltd mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Source code analysis http://www.knosof.co.uk
