Human Digital Twins in Acquiring Information About Human Mental Processes for Cognitive Mimetics

Abstract

Modern information technology makes it possible to redesign the ways people work. In the future, machines can carry out intelligence-requiring tasks, which previously were done by people. It is thus good to develop methodologies for designing intelligent systems. An example of such methods is cognitive mimetics, i.e. imitating human information processing. Today, machines cannot by themselves navigate in archipelagos. However, the fact that people can take care of ship steering and navigation means that there is an information process, which makes it possible to navigate ships. This information process takes place inside the minds of navigating people. If we are able to explicate the information processing in the navigator’s mind, the knowledge of it can be used in designing intelligent machines. Replicating physical objects and industrial processes by means of digital computers is called digital twinning. Digital twins (DTs), which are digital replicas of physical systems and processes, have recently become tools for working with complex industrial processes. A crucial question for DTs is should human actions be added to them? As the answer is positive, such models of human information processing can be called human digital twins (HDTs). The knowledge of human tacit and explicit information processes can be represented by human digital twins. Models can be used in the search for a deeper understanding of human intelligent information processes. Human digital twins can thus be used as methodological tools in cognitive mimetics. In our present study, we modeled paper machine operators’ thinking. Specifically, we developed an ideal-exception-correction (IEC) model for paper operators’ control logic. The model illustrates how research and HDT-modeling can be used for explicating the subconscious or tacit information processing of people for the design of intelligent systems. In this article a model for design processes using cognitive modelling will be suggested. The concepts of cognitive mimetics and human digital twins enable us to outline a model for using the long tradition of simulating human thinking as a tool in designing intelligent systems.