Exploring the Cognitive Effects of Ambiguity in Process Models

Ambiguity in business process models might lead to multiple alternative process interpretations by the readers. This plurality of interpretations causes undesirable situations such as misunderstandings, unclear responsibilities, and unexpected behaviors. However, to date, little attention has been given to how ambiguity affects the model readers. Here, we report on an eye-tracking study aimed at investigating the impact of different ambiguities (i.e., pragmatic, semantic, syntactic, and lexical) on readers’ cognitive load, comprehension, and visual associations when reading process models. The results of this study show that these ambiguities yield a significant impact on cognitive load, comprehension, and visual associations. These results raise further attention toward the negative effects of ambiguity from a cognitive and behavioral perspective, and stimulate the development of novel tools supporting ambiguity detection in process models.