This book contains the papers presented at the NATO Advanced Study
Institute (ASI) on the Basics of Man-Machine Communication for the
Design of Educational Systems, held August 16-26, 1993 in Eindhoven, The
Netherlands. The ASI addressed the state of the art in the design of
educational systems with respect to theories, enabling technologies and
advanced applications and implementation issues. The topics discussed
are grouped into four main subject areas: 1) Fundamentals of human
perception and reasoning, 2) New media: enabling technologies, 3)
Artificial Intelligence; software and design techniques, and 4) Advanced
applications. This interdisciplinary approach, with a clear focus on the
application domain of learning environments, provided the platform for
interdisciplinary exchange and communication between the participants.
The role of human perception and reasoning was presented in the context
of design requirements. The construction of usable human-machine
interfaces requires designers to be aware of the inherent competence of
the human user. That is, a designer needs to understand the resources
that the user brings to the interaction. This includes the general
nature of human and world interactions; the nature of the human
perceptual system; the natural learning processes by which the
information given by the senses is transformed into knowledge of the
world; the reasoning processes that allow humans to make inferences from
that knowledge once acquired; and the ways in which acquired knowledge
may be communicated to others through language.