Practical Implications
A knowledge of the Simon effect is useful in the design of man-machine interfaces. Aircraft cockpits, for example, require a person to react quickly to a situation. Imagine that you are flying a plane and there is a problem with the left engine. In an aircraft with a good man-machine interface design (which most have), the indicator light for the left engine should be positioned physically to the left of the indicator light for the right engine. This interface would display information in a way that matches the types of responses that people should make. If it were the other way around, you may respond incorrectly and adjust the wrong engine.
Read more about this topic: Simon Effect
Famous quotes containing the words practical and/or implications:
“One of the great triumphs of the nineteenth century was to limit the connotation of the word “immoral” in such a way that, for practical purposes, only those were immoral who drank too much or made too copious love. Those who indulged in any or all of the other deadly sins could look down in righteous indignation on the lascivious and the gluttonous.... In the name of all lechers and boozers I most solemnly protest against the invidious distinction made to our prejudice.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“Philosophical questions are not by their nature insoluble. They are, indeed, radically different from scientific questions, because they concern the implications and other interrelations of ideas, not the order of physical events; their answers are interpretations instead of factual reports, and their function is to increase not our knowledge of nature, but our understanding of what we know.”
—Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985)