Peter C-H. Cheng

Has also published under the name of:
"Peter Cheng" and "Peter C. H. Cheng"

Personal Homepage:
informatics.sussex.ac.uk/users/peterch/


Current place of employment:
University of Sussex

Peter Cheng’s main research interest is in the nature of representational systems, spanning the design of external representations and the cognitive processes that deal with internal mental representations. Knowledge rich representations used for higher forms of cognition (e.g., complex problem solving, discovery, conceptual learning) in conceptually demanding domains are a particular interest. He has used various approaches to the study of the fundamental nature of representational systems, including:

• Computational modeling of the role of diagrams in important discoveries in the history of science (Cheng & Simon, 1995; Cheng 1996).
• Design and evaluation of computer-based discovery learning environments that exploit Law Encoding Diagrams for understanding various topics in physics (Cheng, 1999a, 1999b).
• Invention of a novel diagrammatic systems for electricity – AVOW diagrams – that dramatically improves student learning (Cheng, 2002; Cheng & Shipstone, 2003).
• Invention of a novel diagrammatic systems for probability theory – PS diagrams – that makes transparent difficult and paradoxical problems, which makes learning the topics substantially easier compared to traditional approaches (Cheng & Pitt, 2003; Cheng, in press/2011)
• Design of novel interfaces for event scheduling and personel rostering, which novices users can quickly learn and then use to improve solutions generated by experts or commercial strength automated scheduling systems (Cheng, Barone, Cowling & Ahmadi, 2002; Barone & Cheng, 2004).
• Design of novel interfaces for integrated production planning and scheduling for time and resource critical manufacturing processes (Cheng & Barone, 2007).
• Development of methods for knowledge acquisition from experts using diagrams (Cheng, Cupit & Shadbolt, 2001).
• Combined eye-movement recording and computational modelling studies of graph reading (Peebles & Cheng, 2003).

Drawing together these lines of research, Cheng has developed the Representational Epistemic approach for the design of novel visual representations for knowledge rich domains. The REEP approach advocates the design of visual representations and interfaces based on the analysis of the inherent conceptual structure of the knowledge domain. This contrasts with other current approaches that emphasize analyses of task structure or informational structure. It is claimed that the focus upon mapping coherent representational structures to fundamental conceptual structures in REEP produces representations that have a range of benefits, including: making the target domain more comprehensible; making learning of the domain easier and more principled; supporting effective problem solving, with users adopting more sophisticated strategies; supporting diverse forms of reasoning and tasks, without switching between representations.

 Peter is Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex (UK). He is currently a member of the executive committee and the governing board of the Cognitive Science Society and is a former chair of the society.

 See here for a selected list of papers. http://www.informatics.sussex.ac.uk/users/peterch/ChengPapers.html

Publications by Peter C-H. Cheng (bibliography)

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Cheng, Peter C-H. (2011). Commentary on 'Visual Representation' by Alan Blackwell

Cheng, Peter C-H. (2011): Probably good diagrams for learning: Representational epistemic re-codification of probability theory. In Topics in Cognitive Science, .

Cheng, Peter C-H. and Barone, Rossano (2007): Representing complex problems: A representational epistemic approach. In: Jonassen, David H. (ed.). "Learning to solve complex scientific problems". Mahmah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associatespp. 97-130

Cheng, Peter C-H. and Barone, Rossano (2004): Representations for problem solving: on the benefits of integrated structure. In: Banissi, E., Börner, K. and Chen, C. (eds.) Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Information Visualisation 2004. pp. 575-580.

Cheng, Peter C-H. (2003): Diagrams for difficult problems in probability. In Mathematical Gazette, 87 (508) pp. 86-97.

Cheng, Peter C-H. and Shipstone, David M. (2003): Supporting learning and promoting conceptual change with box and AVOW diagrams. Part 1: Representational design and instructional approaches. In International Journal of Science Education, 25 (2) pp. 193-204.

Peebles, David J. and Cheng, Peter C-H. (2003): Modelling the effect of task and graphical representations on response latencies in a graph-reading task. In Human Factors, 45 (1) pp. 28-45.

Cheng, Peter C-H., Barone, Rossano, Cowling, Peter I. and Ahmardi, Samad (2002): Opening the information bottleneck in complex scheduling problems with a novel representation: STARK diagrams. In: Hegarty, M., Meyer, B. J. F. and Narayanan, N. H. (eds.) Diagrammatic representations and inference Second International Conference, Diagrams 2002 2002. pp. 264-278.

Cheng, Peter C-H. (2002): Electrifying diagrams for learning: principles for effective representational systems. In Cognitive Science, 26 (6) pp. 685-736.

Cheng, Peter C-H., Cupit, James and Shadbolt, Nigel R. (2001): Supporting diagrammatic knowledge acquisition: An ontological analysis of Cartesian Graphs. In International Journal of Human Computer Studies, 54 pp. 457-494.

Anderson, Michael, Cheng, Peter C-H. and Haarslev, Volker (eds.) Diagrams 2000 - Theory and Application of Diagrams - First International Conference September 1-3, 2000, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.

Cheng, Peter C-H. (1999): Unlocking conceptual learning in mathematics and science with effective representational systems. In Computers in Education, 2 (109) p. 33.

Cheng, Peter C-H. (1999): Interactive law encoding diagrams for learning and instruction. In Learning and Instruction, 9 (4) pp. 309-326.

Cheng, Peter C-H. and Simon, Herbert A. (1995): Scientific discovery and creative reasoning with diagrams. In: Smith, S. and Ward, T. (eds.). "The Creative Cognition Approach". Cambridge, MA: MIT Presspp. 205-228

Cheng, Peter C-H. (): Interactive law encoding diagrams for learning and instruction. In Learning and Instruction, 9 (4) pp. 309-326.

Changes to this page (author)

25 Feb 2011: Added
25 Feb 2011: Modified