Kent Norman

Who is Kent Norman?

Kent L. Norman is an American cognitive psychologist and an expert on computer rage. He graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1969 and earned a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Iowa in 1973.

In 1983, Norman co-founded the Laboratory for Automation Psychology and Decision Processes as an affiliate of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory and the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. The LAPDP studies the cognitive side of the human/computer interface, with an emphasis on the processes of judgment and decision making. Research in the LAPDP has received corporate support from AT&T, Sperry, and IBM and United States federal agency support from NASA, NSF, NRL, and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Norman designed and wrote the HyperCourseware software system, in 1990, for the preparation and presentation of materials and the processes of education in a virtual learning environment. HyperCourseware has been utilized in the multimedia Teaching Theaters at the University of Maryland, College Park.