cognitive sustainability

This record contains the English translation of sustentabilidade cognitiva — Interação Humano-Máquina, version 1.0, originally published in Portuguese on 31 October 2026: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23846541. The translation was prepared with artificial intelligence assistance on 1 November 2026. This is a theoretical-conceptual preprint and has not undergone peer review. This article presents the conceptual architecture of cognitive sustainability in Human–Machine Interaction developed within the QU and QUEaSTION programme. The guiding question is how intelligibility, autonomy and the conditions for recognition can be preserved when people and systems participate in addressing a dilemma. The approach connects an author-created map of the cognitive process with the current programme manuscripts and selected literature on automation and interaction. The account relates dilemmas, areas of life, roles, actors, SER–TER–ESTAR (being, having and situated states), field influences, preservation, prioritisation, recognisable capacities, applied skills, memories, permission, action and outcomes. It defines QU as the semantic organisation of capacities recognised when weighing dilemmas in complex systems and explains the role of the SEM framework in preserving the meanings being compared. It presents state transformations, the PAC, PAI and PIR patterns, and the distinction between Projected Outcome, Expected Outcome and Produced Outcome. QUEaSTION supports the traceable reconstruction of these relationships; QUIA constitutes a line of technical development. A fictional example of digital scheduling illustrates the scope of the proposal. The contribution consists in organising the framework and delimiting questions for further conceptual development and subsequent empirical investigations.