UPDATING SOME GROUND RULES FOR MAN-MACHINE SIMULATION

• Main Authors: Meeker, Robert J, Shure, Gerald H
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer Hardware; COMPUTERS; CORRELATION TECHNIQUES; EXPERIMENTAL DATA; GAME THEORY; Human Factors Engineering & Man Machine System; MAN MACHINE SYSTEMS; SIMULATION; SOCIAL SCIENCES; Sociology and Law

This paper proposes to show that the techniques and research designs borrowed from the highly abstract, sterilized, easily replicable experiments of the social scientist are, in part, responsible for the failure both to evaluate simulation methodology and to make significant research gains through simulation studies. With the availability of a large-scale, computer-based laboratory, techniques are now available for overcoming many of the serious limitations associated with the problems of data collection and analysis, particularly the difficulty of timely assessment and recording of data on large number of subjects in the precise detail and volume required: and secondly, the problem of usefully analyzing such an enormous and complex body of data. We propose to show that in our own research program the use of large-scale computer-based laboratory permits significant inroads to be made into methodological and validity problems of simulation, which remain relatively intractable under attacks of a smaller scale.