Comprehending user behaviour using psycholinguistics

Abstract This article explores the use of psycholinguistics in attempting to comprehend user behaviour. It aims at getting an idea of what cognitive processes underlie the generation and interpretation of interactions with computers. The key claim of the article is that the cognitive processes underlying artificial language processing in human-computer interaction are analogous lo the ones underlying natural language processing in inter-human communication. The article presents a tentative model of the user's cognitive processes. The model generates interesting hypotheses and provides possible explanations of interaction phenomena.