Research on the organisation of memorised representations and the analysis of the mental activities in which these representations are involved have shown the central role of human categorisation. The psychological principles of mental categorisation are aimed at reducing the multiplicity and the diversity of objects and tasks to proportions compatible with the needs and the processing abilities of the individual. A research program was carried out on the categorisation and interpretation of urban and road environments, by applying theories and methods specific to contemporary cognitive approaches to research problems resulting from safety and operator-activity analyses. The safety objectives of this research were to improve the legibility of the environment in which the driving task was taking place. The experiments already completed led to conclusions on the categorisation principles used by the subjects, the type of clues used and the relevance of their co-occurrences. (A)
Samenvatting