Applied cognitive psychology for information use glossary

Applied cognitive psychology

German: angewandte Kognitionspsychologie

Applied cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that uses research on perception, attention, memory, comprehension, judgment and action to understand and improve how people perform real tasks with real products, tools and information, outside the laboratory conditions in which the underlying theories were developed.

Applied cognitive psychology · Foundations

Evidence-based information design

German: evidenzbasiertes Informationsdesign

In technical communication, evidence-based information design is the practice of basing decisions about the content, structure, wording and layout of information on research findings and on tests with representative users, and of stating how strong the evidence behind each decision is, rather than relying on habit, taste or house style alone.

Applied cognitive psychology · Foundations · Evaluation methods

Information scent

In information foraging theory, information scent is the user's perception, from proximal cues such as link labels, headings, snippets and surrounding context, of how likely a path is to lead to the information they want and of how valuable that information will be.

Applied cognitive psychology · Finding information

Scanning (reading behavior)

German: überfliegendes Lesen

In reading research and usability, scanning is the reading behavior in which people move their eyes quickly over a text or screen to locate specific information or to decide whether it is worth reading, fixating on headings, the beginnings of lines, links, numbers and highlighted words rather than reading every word in order.

Applied cognitive psychology · Finding information

Wayfinding (information architecture)

German: Wayfinding

In information architecture, wayfinding is the process by which people orient themselves in an information space, decide on a route and recognize when they have arrived, and the set of design means — context statements, landmarks, breadcrumbs, maps and consistent labels — that supports it; the concept was carried over from architecture and urban planning.

Applied cognitive psychology · Finding information

Advance organizer

German: Advance Organizer

In educational psychology and technical communication, an advance organizer is introductory material presented before new content, at a higher level of abstraction and generality, that relates the new information to what readers already know so that they can anchor and organize it (David Ausubel, 1960).

Applied cognitive psychology · Understanding

Comprehensibility

German: Verständlichkeit

In technical communication, comprehensibility is the degree to which the intended readers understand a text correctly, in its context of use and for the purpose it serves; it is a property of the relation between text, reader and task and is established by testing readers, not by counting words or sentence lengths.

Applied cognitive psychology · Understanding

Plain language

German: klare Sprache

According to ISO 24495-1:2023, plain language is communication in which wording, structure and design are so clear that the intended readers can easily find what they need, understand what they find and use that information.

Applied cognitive psychology · Understanding · Standards

Readability formula

German: Lesbarkeitsformel

A readability formula is a mathematical formula that estimates the reading difficulty of a text from countable surface features, typically average sentence length and average word length in syllables or letters, such as the Flesch Reading Ease score (1948), the Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level (1975) or, for German, the Amstad adaptation of the Flesch score.

Applied cognitive psychology · Understanding · Evaluation methods

Worked example

German: ausgearbeitetes Lösungsbeispiel

In instructional design and technical communication, a worked example is a step-by-step demonstration of how a problem of a given type is solved, from the starting situation to the solution; the worked-example effect describes the finding that novices learn more from studying such examples than from solving equivalent problems on their own (Sweller and Cooper, 1985).

Applied cognitive psychology · Understanding

Checklist (human factors)

German: Checkliste

In human factors, a checklist is a list of actions or checks, used at defined points of a task, that serves as an external memory aid and as a means of coordinating a team, so that critical items are not omitted; common forms are read-do checklists, worked through item by item, and do-confirm checklists, run after the work to confirm that nothing was missed.

Applied cognitive psychology · Instructions and action

Job aid

German: Arbeitshilfe

In human performance technology and technical communication, a job aid is a tool that stores information outside the user's memory and provides it at the point of work, during the task, such as a checklist, a quick reference card, a decision table, a flowchart or a label on equipment.

Applied cognitive psychology · Instructions and action

Resumption lag

In interruption research, the resumption lag is the time between the end of an interruption and the first action of the resumed primary task, during which people retrieve the suspended goal and their place in the task; it is often accompanied by errors such as repeating or skipping a step.

Applied cognitive psychology · Instructions and action

Cognitive theory of multimedia learning

German: kognitive Theorie multimedialen Lernens

The cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Richard E. Mayer) explains how people learn from words and pictures together on three assumptions: information is processed in separate visual-pictorial and auditory-verbal channels, each channel has limited capacity, and learning requires active processing — selecting, organizing and integrating words and pictures with prior knowledge; design principles for multimedia instruction are derived from it.

Applied cognitive psychology · Multimedia and visual information

Coherence principle (multimedia learning)

German: Kohärenzprinzip

In the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, the coherence principle states that people learn better when extraneous words, pictures and sounds — interesting but irrelevant material such as decorative images, background music or entertaining side stories (seductive details) — are excluded rather than included.

Applied cognitive psychology · Multimedia and visual information

Redundancy principle (multimedia learning)

German: Redundanzprinzip

In cognitive load theory and the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, the redundancy principle states that presenting the same information in several forms at once — for example narration together with identical on-screen text, or a self-explanatory diagram with text that restates it — can hinder learning, because learners must process and reconcile the duplicate information.

Applied cognitive psychology · Multimedia and visual information

Signaling principle (multimedia learning)

German: Signalisierungsprinzip

In the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, the signaling principle states that people learn better when cues highlight the organization of the essential material or the relations between words and pictures, for example headings, outlines, highlighting, arrows, color coding or matching labels.

Applied cognitive psychology · Multimedia and visual information

Spatial contiguity principle

German: Prinzip der räumlichen Nähe

In the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, the spatial contiguity principle states that people learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented near each other on the page or screen rather than far apart, so that readers do not have to search and hold one while looking for the other.

Applied cognitive psychology · Multimedia and visual information

Communication-human information processing model (C-HIP)

German: C-HIP-Modell

In warnings research, the communication-human information processing model (C-HIP) describes how a warning travels from a source through one or more channels to a receiver and then through the receiver's stages of attention switch, attention maintenance, comprehension and memory, beliefs and attitudes, and motivation to behavior, with each stage a potential bottleneck (Michael S. Wogalter and colleagues).

Applied cognitive psychology · Warnings and risk communication

Hazard perception

German: Gefahrenwahrnehmung

In human factors and safety research, hazard perception is a person's ability to detect hazards in a situation and to anticipate how a potentially dangerous situation will develop, early enough to act; in road safety it is measured with computer-based hazard perception tests.

Applied cognitive psychology · Warnings and risk communication

Risk perception

German: Risikowahrnehmung

In psychology and risk communication, risk perception is the subjective judgment people make about the likelihood and severity of harm from a hazard or activity; in the psychometric paradigm (Paul Slovic, 1987) it is shaped by qualitative characteristics such as dread and how unknown a risk is, not only by statistical estimates.

Applied cognitive psychology · Warnings and risk communication

Warning habituation

German: Gewöhnung an Warnhinweise

In warnings research, warning habituation is the decline in attention to and response to a warning that a person encounters repeatedly, especially when it is not relevant to the situation or no harm follows; a change in the warning's form can restore attention (dishabituation).

Applied cognitive psychology · Warnings and risk communication

Card sorting

German: Card Sorting

In information architecture and usability research, card sorting is a method in which participants group cards, each naming a topic or content item, into categories that make sense to them and label the groups, so as to reveal how users mentally organize a subject; in an open sort participants create and name the groups, in a closed sort they use predefined categories, and a hybrid sort combines both.

Applied cognitive psychology · Evaluation methods

Cognitive walkthrough

German: kognitiver Walkthrough

In usability engineering, a cognitive walkthrough is an expert inspection method in which evaluators step through a task with a product, action by action, from the perspective of a new user who learns by exploring, and ask at each step whether that user would know what to do, find the right control, connect it with the goal and understand the feedback.

Applied cognitive psychology · Evaluation methods

Symbol comprehension test

German: Verständlichkeitsprüfung von Symbolen

A symbol comprehension test is a standardized procedure for measuring the extent to which a graphical symbol or a safety sign using one communicates its intended meaning to the intended users without supplementary text; ISO 9186-1:2014 specifies the method used in international standardization of graphical symbols.

Applied cognitive psychology · Evaluation methods · Standards

Think-aloud protocol

German: Methode des lauten Denkens

In cognitive psychology and usability research, the think-aloud protocol is a method in which participants verbalize their thoughts while performing a task (concurrent think-aloud) or while reviewing a recording of it afterward (retrospective think-aloud), and the verbal reports are recorded and analyzed as data on what they attend to, how they interpret information and where they have difficulties.

Applied cognitive psychology · Evaluation methods

Usability testing

German: Usability-Test

Usability testing is an evaluation method in which representative users perform realistic tasks with a product, a prototype or its information while observers record whether and how they succeed, the time and effort needed, the errors they make and their satisfaction, in order to assess usability — the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in a specified context of use (ISO 9241-11:2018).

Applied cognitive psychology · Evaluation methods