Cognitive Task Analysis of Disney World - Assignment Example

Cognitive Task Analysis of Disney World In general, task analysis is a process of analyzing the physical activities and mental models in relation to the performance of a particular task to examine the accomplishment of a specific goal. Task analysis can be done in two ways; physical task analysis associated with analysis of physical environment, and cognitive task analysis which is done in cases where work is more related to mental processes than physical tasks. In other words, cognitive task analysis is done to assess the psychological processes and mental workings of people involved in a specific task (Annett and Stanton, 2000). It is done to examine the decision-making processes that lead to certain results. The cognitive task analysis is done of specific individuals that are involved in performing an assigned task. It is important to mention that cognitive task analysis not only analyzes the procedures involved in the production of specific results in great detail but also identifies the significant drawbacks and highlights ways to correct them (Gindin, 2010). The ultimate focus of cognitive task analysis remains on the psychological workings of mind and higher mental processes involved in the task such as decision-making process. It is done in order to help undertake complex decisions requiring several options and alternatives to choose from. This analysis technique is highly effective to relive the experiences of experts responsible for the performance of the task (Heuer Jr et. al., 2010). There are many advantages of doing a cognitive task analysis which include getting detailed information on cognitive processes, expert tasks and systematic procedures involved in task completion. On the other hand, the downside of cognitive task analysis is that it is very time-consuming, does not take into consideration physical aspects necessary for the task completion and is often difficult to duplicate if experts involved in task were highly professional individuals with unique cognitive abilities (Crandall, et. al, 2006). In this essay, cognitive task analysis of Disney World would be undertaken by using Functional Information Processing Model (FIPM) framework. It is a model for doing the cognitive analysis of a task keeping in view four aspects including facts, images, procedures and mechanisms. It is necessary to explain the concept of Disney World first to do its cognitive task analysis. Disney World is the name of a resort located in United States with a collection of water parks and theme parks (Heuer Jr et. al., 2010). There are multi-tasks done under the brand Disney that is under the ownership of Walt Disney Corporation. It incorporates themes parks, animation movies and a number of products and services. It is a widely recognized brand around the world with its theme parks across various countries of Europe, Asia and other continents. However, the focus of this analysis is restricted to Disney World only that is the famous resort with numerous attractions for the tourists all around the world. It is the result of the dream of the owner of Disney Company who wanted to create a place that could only be imagined in dreams or were displayed on screen through animation movies under license by Walt Disney Corporation (Annett and Stanton, 2000). The framework used for analyzing Disney World consists of several knowledge representations. Knowledge representation is a term used to define an area of artificial intelligence that is related to representing knowledge in terms of symbols to help in spreading knowledge by opening new dimensions of knowledge. Basically, a number of facts are taken and converted in symbols to facilitate understanding of topics. In FIPM framework, facts are collected and are represented in symbols to assist one in developing understanding of it. Another term propositional network is used here to analyze the facts related to some topic (Crandall, et. al, 2006). A propositional network is a group of nodes or components involved with memory process of an individual. There are many component of information located in our brain that form our memory of some object. Some components are interconnected which makes them ‘networks’. However, some propositional networks are hierarchical in nature making sub-divisions of components in our memory function. Factual knowledge is the term used for describing the facts of some are, topic or subject. In this essay, the facts related to and considered important to Disney World are the part of factual knowledge (Annett and Stanton, 2000). In addition to the factual knowledge, another type of knowledge representation is necessary for doing cognitive analysis of a task. It is related to the images regarding a topic that is part of imagery part of memory. A pixel coordinate network is used to describe imagery that can be explained as having in mind how a thing looks like by making a mental picture of that object. Thirdly here comes the procedural knowledge that is related to the procedures and functions of something (Gindin, 2010). For instance, driving a car is a procedure that is saved in the procedural memory of a person familiar with the procedure of driving a car. There are production systems that are used to describe how things work somewhere. Lastly, mechanism knowledge explains the reasons of the working of some functions ad throws light on the processes and mechanism involved in procedures. Here the focus is on the ‘why’ of things instead of answering ‘what’ of procedures. Mental models are employed in the construction of mechanistic knowledge (Gindin, 2010). In order to describe the knowledge representations of Disney World, the essay will focus on four aspects described above to enhance our understanding of topic by using FIPM framework. Firstly, the factual knowledge is required which encompasses important facts related to Disney World. These facts can be collecting information about how various things are done in this resort. It utilizes knowledge about a lot of things that are necessary for the construction of this world-famous resort. The experts involved in this task have to learn about places, people living in them and to get to know the interests and demands of people in order to create a place that would earn a good repute in the markets and business world (Crandall, et. al, 2006). A lot of information about machinery and science is required to manufacture certain swings and games for children and people coming in parks in the vicinity of Disney World. As the resort consists of theme and water parks which are six in total, there are different requirements for each park. For instance, the water parks require the knowledge about science in relation to water as a physical force and the chemical substances associated with it (Heuer Jr et. al., 2010). An extensive knowledge about physics and chemistry is required to be able to manage the water parks. There is a big infrastructure involved in Disney’s water parks which include equipments for assisting a person to swim in water. The knowledge about these things is also vital to be able to manufacture products in such a way to suit the needs and demands of people. Besides, it is also the responsibility of the experts who are assigned the task of constructing this resort to ensure that it is environment-friendly and does not put harmful effects on the surroundings and most importantly do not contribute toward pollution (Hollnagel, 2003). Furthermore, the theme parks of Disney World resort also require an extensive knowledge about machinery that is an integral part of these parks. The theme parks are loaded with recreational stuff and infrastructure such as boats, swings, trains, merry-go-rounds and similar devices for acting as sources of adventure and recreation for children and adults. Therefore, it is important to keep in one’s mind the basic manufacturing equipments and materials that are necessary for constructing such big infrastructure (Hollnagel, 2003). Knowledge about biology is also required on the part of the experts indulged in the task of creating Disney World to manage the big animal kingdom located within one of the four theme parks of Disney World. It is the jobs of the experts to know about various categories of animals that are present in Disney World resort and to know about the needs and each and every animal to better take care of them. It is also their duty to think for particular arrangements for feeding animals and keep them in safe places. In other words, a detailed understanding of ecosystems, animals and their way of living is required to be able to create an animal kingdom in a place away from jungle and wild life ((Heuer Jr et. al., 2010). Moreover, in building Disney World, a big manufacturing plant is needed to manufacture costumes and products that are available at the resort. Therefore, in order to create a manufacturing plant the information about raw materials and markets in necessary to get cheap materials to reduce one’s cost. Information about legal system is also required to produce things following the legal procedures and regulations of government. It is also important that the manufacturing plant does not increase pollution so an extensive knowledge about environment-friendly procedures is essential as well as full-fledged industry knowledge is needed (Hollnagel, 2003). After describing the factual knowledge, a description of imagery is given here to analyze Disney World through cognitive task analysis. In this type of knowledge, a person gets to know about something by looking at it and visual knowledge is required to be able to recognize certain thing. For instance, medical experts get to know about fractures by looking at x-rays and use their visual representations of things to be able to use their expertise in treating patients. In applying the imagery knowledge of this framework to Disney World, it is important to for the experts to develop awareness of similar parks and resorts and visualize how Disney World would appear (Gindin, 2010). It is important to keep this fact in mind that some tasks use factual knowledge more than imagery or other type of knowledge. Likewise, in the case of Disney World, a lot of factual knowledge is needed but not much imagery is required. It is because of the nature of this task that is not imagery focused and other types of knowledge are important for the performance of this task. However, it is more related with imagination and dream world so the task requires a lot of mechanistic knowledge in order to undertake the concepts surrounding theme parks (Hollnagel, 2003). In the third feature of the functional information processing model, procedural knowledge is acquired which is related to getting to know about the procedures of performing tasks. It involves using knowledge about the way things are done or the processes that are used to produce things or create products and services. For experts of Disney World, procedural knowledge is required to know about the working of things in the parks. They need to know the detailed procedures of manufacturing and the working of infrastructure. In other words, the extensive knowledge of production systems is needed in order to represent the procedural knowledge. Lastly, the mechanistic knowledge is required to get to know how things are working the way they are. It employs using mental models to imagine in mind certain things before implementing them in real world. In case of Disney World, it is probably the most frequently used type of knowledge because the concept of theme parks and water parks is unique and based on the imagination of experts. The things introduced in Disney World are not to be found in real world and are thus necessarily the result of imagination (Gindin, 2010). Keeping in view the framework and its features describes above in the form of knowledge representations, it is possible to devise an instructional design that is knowledge-based. An instructional design is a process in which a student or a learner is taught learning strategies to perform a certain task. In order to help a leaner in this task, he should be taught specific types of knowledge that are involved with cognitive task analysis of Disney World. Firstly, he should master the facts involved with this concept of Disney World by using cognitive processes of chunking and inference. Chunking is a process in which small bits and pieces of information are memorized to form a propositional network in one’s memory. It is a helpful way to remind facts and things become easy to learn. Another process is using inference in which a learner not only used the knowledge he already have on the topic but also looks at other aspects that seem strange or novel to him. For instance, in case of an x-ray, a medical student can look and find some abnormal feature in it which he has not been taught about (Neal and Neal, 2010). The second process of knowledge-based instructional design is use of imagery which can be enabled by using visualization strategy. It involves the manipulation of the features in an image in order to learn the knowledge to be used in future. Another strategy is visual interpretation and segmentation strategy which is simply trying to understand an image based on previous knowledge that is stored in one’s memory about images. The third process is linked with procedural knowledge and is named as the strategy of proceduralization. This learning strategy is associated with learning the basic steps or processes of a procedure. For instance, a learner can get to know about the basics of procedures of Disney World by looking at series of steps that are undertaken to make a job happen. Lastly, the instructional design makes use of knowledge about mental models is envisioning the instructional strategy of thinking about the limits of a specific mental model in an attempt to create a complete one (Schraagen, et. al., 2000). It is important to understand the things that are important for doing an effective cognitive task analysis. Firstly, it is important to collect preliminary knowledge about the topic from various sources. The sources can be in the form of observation, interviews and collecting information from various means. Observation can be done of the people involved in the task and it is very important to focus one’s attention on actions they are doing. Taking notes is a good way to memorize the aspects of the way things are being done by professionals. Another method is interviewing those people and asking them about the way they are performing things. Taking an unstructured interview is a good option as it enables the interviewer to get involved with the interviewee and talk about a lot of things previously unknown to the interviewee. However, structured interview can also be undertaken which involves preparing semi-structured lists or questionnaires before interviewing and then following a structured pattern to conduct an interview. Despite these things, a detailed knowledge of the topic is important for the person to do a cognitive task analysis in a desired manner (Hollnagel, 2003). To sum up, Disney World can be analyzed through FIPM framework by knowing the facts and general knowledge of the things and factors involved in this concept. Then the knowledge about procedures, imagery and the mechanisms behind them is required to complete the task. It is no doubt a challenging task to get to know the internal workings of mind of experts that are doing some task. However, with effort and attaining extensive knowledge about key aspects of cognitive processes can be helpful in performing this task effectively. Interacting with experts is a good way to get to know about their decision-making processes. References: Annett, John and Neville Anthony Stanton, Task Analysis. CRC Press. 2000. Print. Crandall, Beth; Gary Klein and Robert R. Hoffmann, Working Minds: A practitioner’s guide to Cognitive Task Analysis. The MIT Press. 2006. Print. Gindin, Rona, The Little Black book of Walt Disney world, 2011. Peter Pauper Press. 2010. Print. Heuer Jr., Richards and Randolph H. Pherson, Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence analysis. CQ Press College. 2010. Print. Hollnagel, Erik, Handbook of Cognitive Task Design, CRC Press. 2003. Print. Neal, Julie and Mike Neal, The Complete Walt Disney World 2011. Coconut Press. 2011. Print. Schraagen, Jan Maarten; Susan F. Chipman and Valerie L. Shalin. Cognitive Task Analysis. Psychology Press. 2000. Print. 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