Contending with Complexity: The Development and Use of Scaled Worlds as Research Tools

Complex, real-world behavior takes place in complex, real-world environments. Efforts to study cognition in such environments can be hampered by difficulty in accurately tracking information flow. This problem may be tackled by studying task performance in the context of a scaled world—an abstracted version of the task environment designed to elucidate information flow while maintaining the critical elements ofthat environment. Scaled worlds are discussed in the context of our current research, Project NEMO.