armor has seven advanced genocide mechanics troops tracked and targeted. Itâs relaying suit performance data back to Pepper on the helicarrier. Itâs keeping an eye on a communications satellite over Madrid thatâs either being hacked or starting to fail. Itâs relaying a PowerPoint presentation from a Stark U.K. R&D presentation. And apparently Josh Beckett is eight innings into a no-hitter ⦠Not to jinx anything.
âTony reflecting on all the info the suit provides, from âThe Five Nightmares, Part 2 : Murder Inc.â (Invincible Iron Man #2, 2008)
Outside, a 400 mph slipstream of freezing air is roaring past me at a sound level of 104 decibels. Inside, a 9,000 song playlist thatâs heavily skewed to â80s metal is roaring at only a few decibels less. On my back, a superconducting capacitor ring is spinning, charged with enough electricity to power a decade-long concert by every band on that playlist at once.
âTony Stark, from âHypervelocity: Part 5â (Iron Man, 2007)
You are making dinner and just added pasta to boiling water. You have a cup of hot tea in one hand. Then the phone rings so you run over to grab it. At the same time your dog starts barking to be let in. Or out. Or maybe she isnât sure. But you let her out while answering the phone. Just in time you glance over at the stove to see the water foaming up and about to boil over. You wedge the phone under your chin so you can fling the door open (or closed) with the hand not holding the mug and run over to the stove. On the way you donât notice the dogâs squeaky toy, trip over it, stumble, spill your tea all over the work you left on the table and arrive at the stove just after the water has boiled over leaving a nice white scum that you will have to clean up later. You just did a lot of multitasking. And it didnât all work out.
Most of the time, it is fairly simple to perform a wide range of movements or tasks. We seem to sometimes perform even more specialized skills like driving with little obvious attention. In our society, we now do a great deal of multitasking, and juggling many tasks all at once is commonplace. However, when we have to do different things simultaneously and as the need for skill and complexity increases, tasks become more difficult. The scenario we just opened with is a good example. You can probably call this the âwalking and chewing gum at the same timeâ problem. Imagine walking across a room (or, if you are able, you can actually do it). Now get a glass and fill it right to the brim with water. Hold that glass in your hand and then try to walk across the room again, all the while focusing on not spilling a drop of water. Probably when you did it that way, you either walked slower or walked at the same pace but spilled a fair bit of water. This outcome represents the effect of âcognitive load,â which means that we can only put attention on so many things at once. The more we add to what we are doing, the greater is the degradation of performance of each thing that we attempt to do.
In this chapter, we will explore this specific problem. We will also look into what has been done to minimize the effects of cognitive load in real-life jobs that share some of the same concerns as Iron Manâfighter jet pilots. This chapter is about the limits of human information processing, or what we would more commonly think of as attention. And this is something that Tony Stark recognizes as an issue. In the story âWorldâs Most Wanted, Part 6: Some King of the Worldâ (Iron Man #13, 2009), Tony says, âThe Iron Man is getting more complicated than I can pilot. I need to downgrade it back intosomething more ⦠consumer grade.â Later in that same story, he echoes this sentiment by saying âI have to simplify the suit.â Letâs look at why he has to simplify that suit!
How Much Does It Cost to Pay Attention?
Linking up a
âTony reflecting on all the info the suit provides, from âThe Five Nightmares, Part 2 : Murder Inc.â (Invincible Iron Man #2, 2008)
Outside, a 400 mph slipstream of freezing air is roaring past me at a sound level of 104 decibels. Inside, a 9,000 song playlist thatâs heavily skewed to â80s metal is roaring at only a few decibels less. On my back, a superconducting capacitor ring is spinning, charged with enough electricity to power a decade-long concert by every band on that playlist at once.
âTony Stark, from âHypervelocity: Part 5â (Iron Man, 2007)
You are making dinner and just added pasta to boiling water. You have a cup of hot tea in one hand. Then the phone rings so you run over to grab it. At the same time your dog starts barking to be let in. Or out. Or maybe she isnât sure. But you let her out while answering the phone. Just in time you glance over at the stove to see the water foaming up and about to boil over. You wedge the phone under your chin so you can fling the door open (or closed) with the hand not holding the mug and run over to the stove. On the way you donât notice the dogâs squeaky toy, trip over it, stumble, spill your tea all over the work you left on the table and arrive at the stove just after the water has boiled over leaving a nice white scum that you will have to clean up later. You just did a lot of multitasking. And it didnât all work out.
Most of the time, it is fairly simple to perform a wide range of movements or tasks. We seem to sometimes perform even more specialized skills like driving with little obvious attention. In our society, we now do a great deal of multitasking, and juggling many tasks all at once is commonplace. However, when we have to do different things simultaneously and as the need for skill and complexity increases, tasks become more difficult. The scenario we just opened with is a good example. You can probably call this the âwalking and chewing gum at the same timeâ problem. Imagine walking across a room (or, if you are able, you can actually do it). Now get a glass and fill it right to the brim with water. Hold that glass in your hand and then try to walk across the room again, all the while focusing on not spilling a drop of water. Probably when you did it that way, you either walked slower or walked at the same pace but spilled a fair bit of water. This outcome represents the effect of âcognitive load,â which means that we can only put attention on so many things at once. The more we add to what we are doing, the greater is the degradation of performance of each thing that we attempt to do.
In this chapter, we will explore this specific problem. We will also look into what has been done to minimize the effects of cognitive load in real-life jobs that share some of the same concerns as Iron Manâfighter jet pilots. This chapter is about the limits of human information processing, or what we would more commonly think of as attention. And this is something that Tony Stark recognizes as an issue. In the story âWorldâs Most Wanted, Part 6: Some King of the Worldâ (Iron Man #13, 2009), Tony says, âThe Iron Man is getting more complicated than I can pilot. I need to downgrade it back intosomething more ⦠consumer grade.â Later in that same story, he echoes this sentiment by saying âI have to simplify the suit.â Letâs look at why he has to simplify that suit!
How Much Does It Cost to Pay Attention?
Linking up a
Similar Books
