An experiment and a model for the human operator in a time-constrained competing-task environment

In a number of supervisory control situations, the human operator is responsible for multiple tasks with different task demands and unclear performance criteria. The operator's attention must usually be allocated between a number of competing systems. Quite often, due to the dynamic nature of the system, quick actions may be required at various points in time. To study the human in such a time-constrained environment, an experiment was designed based on monitoring the spread of forest fires to identify threatening situations. Results from the experiment were used to identify heuristics which, in turn, were used in a model of the human operator. The model calculated a set of feasible control actions at any time, from which a single action was chosen based on priority indices calculated using fuzzy membership functions. The model matched observed results very well.