Chris Demchak explores the reasons why military machines surprise their users and how they can change both the complexity and effectiveness of tactical organizations. She uses the Army's experiences with its M1 Abrams tank, as well as other examples, to explain the interaction of complex technology and militaries that seek to control uncertainty. Under some conditions, Demchak demonstrates, complexity in critical machines induces increased complexity in the organizations that use them, and can produce an army different from the one that was intended. Drawing on organization theory and her data, she argues that understanding this interaction will heavily influence whether armed forces reductions, savings, and modernization produce rapid, successful military organizations or lethally unpredictable ones.

Introduction and overview. Workshop themes and issues: the psycology of system design. Effects of technological and organizational trends on system design. Designers, tools, and environments: State of knowledge, unresolved issues, and potential directions. An experimental view of the design process. The tower of Babel revisited: On cross-disciplinary chokepoints in system design. Psycology or reality. Some intellwctual requirements for system design. The changing nature of the human-machine design problem: implications for system design and development. Designing in virtual space. The difficulties of design problem formulation. The role of man in the system design process: The unresolved dilemma. Analytical versus recognitional approaches to design decision making. Unified life cycle engineering. Information technology and other factors in system design. On nature of design and an environment for design. Toward a more systematic, efficient design process: the potential impact of intelligent design Aids. A cognitive theory of design and requirements for a behavioral design aid. Designing for user acceptance of design aids. Engineering design support systems. Designers, decision making, and decision support. Knowledge, skills, and information requirements for systems design. Intuition by design. The nature of design (and the designer).

Since the mid-1970s, scientific and educational research has left a gap in the field of basic and applied research on transfer of learning. This book fills the gap with state-of-the-art information on recent research in the field, emphasizing methodological paradigms and interpretive concepts based on contemporary cognitive/information processing approaches to the study of human behavior. Issues discussed include how transfer is measured, how its direction and magnitude are determined, how training for transfer differs from training for acquisition, and whether different principles of transfer apply to motor, cognitive, and meta-cognitive processes.