Human supervision and control in engineering and music: similarities, dissimilarities, and their implications

The human supervisory control model has been used successfully for decades and in numerous contexts to describe human interaction with complex technical systems. Recently, it has been argued that supervisory control modeling can also be applied in a musical context, to describe the interaction between a conductor and an orchestra. This paper reviews a range of applications of supervisory control modeling. Further, the authors attempt to identify similarities and dissimilarities between its use in technical and musical settings. The aim is to identify valuable knowledge and experience from the musical field. Such experience could be used to enrich the design of interaction between humans and complex technical systems. The key to successful knowledge transfer is the general applicability of human supervisory control modeling.