Control of nonlinear, adaptive systems

Differences in property characteristics of natural and engineered systems, such as transparency, linearity, and adaptability, are likely to result in differences in human ability to control these systems. This study explored human performance on a simulated control task, in which system characteristics of adaptability and linearity were manipulated. An experiment was conducted in which 53 participants used a joystick to perform a manual control task. A secondary stimulus response task was used to compare cognitive demand between the conditions. The results indicate that control performance was worse and cognitive demand was greater in the control tasks that simulated the natural system characteristics of adaptability and nonlinearity. Potential applications of this research include furthering experimental exploration of control differences between natural and engineered systems as well as motivating the development of a control theory specific to human interactions with natural systems.