Chaptedr 1 - Engineering Psychology and Ergonomics

Abstract

This chapter explores engineering psychology and ergonomics. The struggle to define engineering psychology has been ongoing within the discipline since the beginning. According to one view, engineering psychologists should be trained as both psychologists and engineers and should be at home in both these worlds. An alternative view distinguishes between engineering psychology and human factors engineering and characterizes the former as a field of scientific inquiry, guided by scientific objectives distinct from utilitarian ones. In earlier times, it had been used to refer to the scientific study of work or to the study of the relationship between people and their working environments, but in modern times it has been given a sufficiently broad connotation to include both engineering psychology and human factors engineering. The chapter describes engineering psychology as a bridging, or “hybrid,” discipline. Its function is to bring psychological knowledge—knowledge of the sensory, perceptual, motor, and cognitive capabilities and limitations of human beings—to bear on the design of devices, systems, and procedures that are to be used by people. Engineering psychologists' interests and activities are determined to a large degree by the problems presented by technological developments. There are many challenges for engineering psychologists relating to technology but they are under development.