Hierarchical task network and action-based planning approaches have traditionally been studied separately. In many domains, human expertise in the form of hierarchical reduction schemas exists, but is incomplete. In such domains, hybrid approaches that use both HTN and action-based planning techniques are needed. In this paper, we extend our previous work on refinement planning to include hiera...

Since the initial publication in 1994, Coordination Theory (Malone and Crowston, 1994) has been referenced in nearly 300 journal articles, book chapters, conference papers and theses. This chapter will analyze the contribution of this body of research to determine how Coordination Theory has been used for user task analysis and modelling for HCI. Issues that will be addressed include: I) how th...

The abstract deontic selection task was developed with the aim of demonstrating abstract rule use in a specific domain (i.e., deontic rules). Yet, the solution rate, while being substantially higher than with abstract non-deontic tasks, did not reach the level obtained with concrete deontic tasks. What are the reasons for this—difficulties with abstract rule use? A task analysis based on deonti...

We suggest that the primary motivation for an agent to construct a symbol-meaning mapping is to solve a task. The meaning space of an agent should be derived from the tasks that it faces during the course of its lifetime. We outline a process in which agents learn to solve multiple tasks and extract a store of “cumulative knowledge” that helps them to solve each new task more quickly and accura...

Stigmergy is usually associated with semantically simple problems such as routing. It can be applied to more complex problems by encoding them in the environment through which stigmergic agents interact. We demonstrate this approach by showing how stigmergic agents can plan over a hierarchical task network, specifically a resource-oriented dialect of the TÆMS language. We not only report our su...

This article describes SHPE (Simple Hierarchical Planning Engine), a hierarchical task network planning system designed to generate dynamic behaviours for real-time video games. SHPE is based on a combination of domain compilation and procedural task application/decomposition techniques in order to compute plans in a very short time-frame. The planner has been able to return relevant plans in l...

Research has demonstrated that both attention and emotion influence temporal perception. Even though behavioral findings support a common system for temporal and numerical estimations, no research has investigated the impact of emotion on numerical estimation or the role that attention plays in that process. Using a numerical bisection task, the current research investigated enumeration of emot...

In patient care, maintaining skill competencies during technological advances requires effective knowledge changes processes. One method used consists of task repetition until errors are non-existent and successful demonstration of new learning is complete however, adjusting to numerous procedural changes may be difficult. Determining how to maximize change process during competency acquisition...

The expressiveness of the GOMS language for describing “how-to” knowledge determines what kinds of human activities can be captured by a GOMS task analysis. This paper addresses the adequacy of this framework for representing human behavior in realistically time-pressured, uncertain, and otherwise demanding task environments. Several improvements have been incorporated into a GOMS-like formalis...

We describe a simple and powerful tool for the management of distributed work: the Task Manager. Common tasks may be shared and manipulated independently by a number of people. They are represented as shared to-do lists at the user interface. With the help of the tool, users may organize cooperative tasks, monitor their progress, share documents and services, and exchange messages during task p...