Advanced cognitive engineering

Cognitive engineering is a multidisciplinary endeavour concerned with the analysis, design, and evaluation of complex systems of people and technology. It combines knowledge and experience from cognitive science, human factors, human-computer interaction design, and systems engineering. The traditional focus of cognitive engineering has been on understanding the cognitive demands imposed by complex work environments, and designing systems that will help create an optimal sociotechnical ecosystem. However, as ICT is increasingly moving beyond the workplace, into private and public realms, and ICT systems are embedded into everyday objects and environments, the scope of the course will include new application domains (e.g., in home, healthcare, or automotive contexts), new interaction styles and paradigms (e.g., ubiquitous computing, gesture-based computing, affective computing) as well new theoretical frameworks that are required to understand humans' co-adaptive relationship with technology (e.g., embodied cognition, extended mind, distributed cognition).

In this course, you will be introduced to the basic principles of cognitive systems engineering and obtain an appreciation of the main trends and developments in interface design "beyond the desktop", including embodied and embedded interaction, ubiquitous computing, affective computing, tangible interaction, gesture-based interaction, natural user interfaces, and virtual/augmented reality. Moreover, there will be an emphasis on understanding the intimate, bi-directional, and co-evolving relationship between human minds and bodies on the one hand, and interactive technologies on the other, highlighting the ways in which technology can support and leverage, but also constrain and limit, human thought and experience.

After following this course, students should be able to:

• have an appreciation of the main trends and developments in cognitive engineering, and interface design “beyond the desktop”, including its application in relevant contexts (e.g., work, home, healthcare, automotive)
• understand and be able to explain key concepts and theories that relate to human-computer interaction, including recent interface concepts “beyond the desktop”, including ambient intelligence, ubiquitous computing, affective computing, tangible interaction, gesture-based interaction, natural user interfaces, virtual and augmented reality;
• understand and discuss effects of media technology on user experience, engagement, affect, cognition, and memory, and the ways in which technology can support and leverage, but also constrain and limit, human thought and experience;
• understand and be able to discuss theoretical perspectives that highlight the intimate, bi-directional, and co-evolving relationship between human minds and interactive technologies, including embodied, embedded and extended views of human cognition;
• understand and be able to critically assess the main psychological and ethical issues related to embodied and embedded computing, including issues of individual control, privacy, and überveillance.

You must meet one of the following collections of requirements

• Collection 1
• Completed Final examination Bsc program
• Collection 2
• Completed Pre-Master

• Clive Thompson (2013). Smarter than you think. How technology is changing our minds for the better. London: William Collins.
• Capita selecta