A Conceptual Framework for Predicting Error in Complex Human-Machine Environments

We present a Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection Rules-Model Human Processor (GOMS-MHP) style model-based approach to the problem of predicting human habit capture errors. Habit captures occur when the model fails to allocate limited cognitive resources to retrieve task-relevant information from memory. Lacking the unretrieved information, decision mechanisms act in accordance with implicit default assumptions, resulting in error when relied upon assumptions prove incorrect. The model helps interface designers identify situations in which such failures are especially likely.