We describe an approach to cognitive task analysis that utilizes two mutually reinforcing analyses. One analysis focuses on building a description of the cognitive demands imposed by the world that any intelligent agent would have to deal with (a model of the cognitive environment). The second analysis, conducted in parallel, is an empirical investigation of how practitioners, both experts and less skilled individuals, respond to the task demands (a performance model). We then discuss how a cognitive simulation can support a cognitive task analysis.
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