Table 2.2: Relative capabilities of humans and machines, Designing the User Interface, Ben Shneiderman, Addison-Wesley, 1992

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Table 2.2: Relative capabilities of humans and machines.<br/>
From Designing the User Interface by Ben Shneiderman (Addison-Wesley, 1992).
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<table cellspacing="4">
<tr>
   <td>Humans Generally Better</td>
   <td>Machines Generally Better</td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Sense low level stimuli</td>

   <td>Sense stimuli outside human's range</td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Detect stimuli in noisy background</td>
   <td>Count or measure physical quantities</td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Recognize constant patterns in varying situations</td>
   <td>Store quantities of coded information accurately</td>

</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Sense unusual and unexpected events</td>
   <td>Monitor prespecified events, especially infrequent</td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td></td>
   <td>Make rapid and consistent responses to input signals</td>
</tr>
<tr>

   <td>Remember principles and strategies</td>
   <td>Recall quantities of detailed information accurately</td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Retrieve pertinent details without a priori connection</td>
   <td>Process quantitative data in prespecified ways</td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Draw on experience and adapt decisions to a situation</td>

   <td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Select alternatives if original approach fails</td>
   <td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Reason inductively: generalize from observations</td>
   <td>Reason deductively: infer from a general principle</td>

</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Act in unanticipated emergencies and novel situations</td>
   <td>Perform repetitive preprogrammed actions reliably</td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td></td>
   <td>Exert great, highly controlled physical force</td>
</tr>
<tr>

   <td>Apply principles to solve varied problems</td>
   <td></td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Make subjective evaluations<br/>Develop new solutions</td>
   <td>Perform several activities simultaneously</td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Concentrate on important tasks when overload occurs</td>

   <td>Maintain operations under heavy information load</td>
</tr>
<tr>
   <td>Adapt physical response to changes in situation</td>
   <td>Maintain performance over extended periods of time</td>
</tr>
</table>