Adaptive channels and human decisionmaking

Basic results are presented concerning information transmission through certain nonclassical `adaptive' channels: those with varying symbol-processing times. Specifically, conditions are obtained under which the channel becomes overloaded, i.e. the frequency of inputs which are lost due to buffer overflow becomes significant. Based on the adaptive channel, a model for the human decision-maker in certain high-data-rate systems of the air-traffic control or command, control, and communications (C
³
) type is then developed. Hitherto anomalous experimental trends of information-theoretic quantities are shown to be consistent with the present model.