This paper evaluates perception of complexity in a novel explanatory model that relates product performance and engineering effort. Complexity is an intermediate factor with two facets: it enables desired product performance but also requires effort to achieve. Three causal mechanisms explain how exponential growth bias, excess complexity, and differential perception lead to effort overruns. Secondary data from a human subject experiment validates the existence of perception of complexity as a context-dependent factor that influences required design effort. A two-level mixed effects regression model quantifies differences in perception among 40 design groups. Results summarize how perception of complexity may contribute to effort overruns and outline future work to further validate the explanatory model and causal mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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对工程设计复杂性的认知

本文评估了一种将产品性能和工程工作联系起来的新型解释模型中对复杂性的感知。复杂性是一个具有两个方面的中间因素：它能够实现所需的产品性能，但也需要付出努力才能实现。三个因果机制解释了指数增长偏差、过度复杂性和差异感知如何导致努力超支。来自人类受试者实验的二手数据验证了复杂性感知的存在，它是影响所需设计工作的上下文相关因素。一个两级混合效应回归模型量化了 40 个设计组之间的感知差异。结果总结了对复杂性的看法如何导致工作超支，并概述了进一步验证解释模型和因果机制的未来工作。