Cognitive Ergonomics Research Articles

Cognitive ergonomics in the analysis of work on offshore platforms: “Cognitive Bowtie” application

Cognitive ergonomics in the analysis of work on offshore platforms: “Cognitive Bowtie” application

Benefits of nanotechnology for occupational ergonomic design: A positive step toward more protection of workers' health

AbstractNowadays, the combination of “Nanotechnology” and “Ergonomics” has been known as “Nano‐ergonomics.” Nano‐ergonomics can help to develop more comfortable conditions in workplaces. So, the aim of this study is to reveal benefits of nanotechnology for occupational health and safety design, especially ergonomic design. The search strategy was provided based on cochrane guidelines with main search terms of “Nanotechnology,” “Nanomaterial,” and “Nanoparticle” combined with “Ergonomics” and “Human Factors.” PubMed, Scopus, Web of Sciences and Google Scholar Databases were researched for relevant articles. Also, Google search engine was used to find nano‐ergonomic commercial products and to complete the research with identifying additional information. A total of 32 articles were first achieved. By providing Synthesis Without Meta‐analysis reporting guideline, finally, four studies were regarded as appropriate. The results showed that nanotechnology has developed in three major areas of ergonomics such as physical, environmental, and cognitive ergonomics, which is a positive step toward more protection of workers' health. Although, there are not any original article related to nanotechnology for ergonomic product design, they are offered as the commercial products by the largest companies such as Amazon. Also, workers at the nanotechnology‐related industries have the challenges of exposure to toxic nanomaterials. So, before the application of nanomaterials, we should have proper knowledge of nanomaterials‐caused toxic hazards and how to handle them.

The roles of cognitive ergonomics in reducing human error and burnout among emergency room nurses during the Covid-19 pandemic

Background: Mental health, particularly burnout syndrome, is one of the concerns that can influence the productivity of health workers during the pandemic. This is because health professionals are under intense pressure, but there is no guideline or procedure in place to safeguard them in terms of mental health. The objective of this study is to discover burnout and human error, as well as to provide advice, by analyzing the ergonomic factors. Method: Human Error Assessment and Reduction Technique was the identifying approach employed (HEART) in this study. The sample consisted of ten emergency room personnel from one of the hospitals in Yogyakarta. Results: The activity with the greatest HEP was the delivery of first aids, which had a value of 0.068. This activity requires more difficult and complex labor abilities, making human unreliability more significant and increasing the likelihood of human error. Conclusion: Recommendations are made to assist nurses in dealing with heavy and varied workloads so that the reliability of nurses at work can be increased and burnout can be reduced, including the suppression of environmental factors to be as small as possible to reduce the workload of nurses, urging nurses to begin monitoring the situation and taking anticipatory steps so that the burnout does not worsen, and holding regular sharing sessions among nurses, upgrading knowledge and fostering a sense of togetherness.

Recent advancements in multimodal human-robot interaction.

Robotics have advanced significantly over the years, and human-robot interaction (HRI) is now playing an important role in delivering the best user experience, cutting down on laborious tasks, and raising public acceptance of robots. New HRI approaches are necessary to promote the evolution of robots, with a more natural and flexible interaction manner clearly the most crucial. As a newly emerging approach to HRI, multimodal HRI is a method for individuals to communicate with a robot using various modalities, including voice, image, text, eye movement, and touch, as well as bio-signals like EEG and ECG. It is a broad field closely related to cognitive science, ergonomics, multimedia technology, and virtual reality, with numerous applications springing up each year. However, little research has been done to summarize the current development and future trend of HRI. To this end, this paper systematically reviews the state of the art of multimodal HRI on its applications by summing up the latest research articles relevant to this field. Moreover, the research development in terms of the input signal and the output signal is also covered in this manuscript.

Assessment of selected psychosocial risk factors: stress, job burnout, and bullying in the case of medical staff as part of workplace ergonomics during the COVID-19 pandemic-A prospective pilot study.

The purpose of the pilot study conducted by the authors was to assess occupational risk in selected areas of psychosocial risk factors among health professions in a pilot study. Medical staff working in the healthcare sector experience stress, job burnout and bullying on a daily basis. Monitoring occupational risks in the above areas provides an opportunity to take appropriate preventive measures. The prospective online survey included 143 health care workers from various professional groups. Eighteen participants did not complete the survey, and the results of 125 participants were eventually included in the analysis. The study used health and safety questionnaires in the healthcare sector, which are not widely used as screening tools in Poland. The following statistical methods were performed in the study: the Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal-Wallis test, Dunn's test. In addition, multivariate analysis was performed. The results obtained in the study indicate that the questionnaires used in the study can be widely used by employers or occupational medicine as screening tools. Our findings show that level of education attainment in healthcare is correlated with higher chance of experiencing stress and burnout. Among the surveyed professions, nurses reported a higher amount of stress and burnout. Paramedics reported the highest chance of being bullied at work. This can be explained by their nature of work which requires directly interacting with patients and their families. In addition, it should be noted that the tools used can be successfully applied in workplaces as elements of workplace ergonomics assessment in the context of cognitive ergonomics.

Facilidad de uso de los auriculares en la pandemia de covid-19 Usabilidade do Fone de ouvido na pandemia covid-19

The use of headphones was accentuated starting from the year 2020, inserted in the online universe of meetings, conferences, congresses, lives, classes, and videos, in the home office system, due to social isolation, resource resulting from health recommendations, pandemic of Covid 19. The purpose of this work is based on the response of the survey carried out with users to assist the design when elaborating the headphones project, considering the usability and choice factors from the perspective of the user’s perception. Based on a literature review, a questionnaire was designed aimed at the perception of the fundamental requirements of the device, which led to essential factors directing future design projects, in which there is alignment between physical and cognitive ergonomics, aiming at comfort, usage satisfaction, and health of its users.

Determining Factors Affecting the Protective Behavior of Filipinos in Urban Areas for Natural Calamities Using an Integration of Protection Motivation Theory, Theory of Planned Behavior, and Ergonomic Appraisal: A Sustainable Disaster Preparedness Approach

The Philippines is considered one of the most vulnerable and susceptible countries to the effects of natural disasters due to its location. Therefore, the country needs to be resilient to the natural calamities it faces yearly. The research aimed to determine the factors that affect the protective behavior of Filipinos during natural disasters by integrating protective motivation theory, the theory of planned behaviors, and ergonomic appraisals, and by adding variables such as knowledge and geographical perspectives. PLS-SEM was used to determine the significant factors that affect protective behavior. A questionnaire was developed and distributed to 302 Filipinos in the Philippines through a digital survey using Google forms. The analysis showed that the intention to prepare is the most significant factor affecting their protective behavior, followed by macro and physical ergonomics. Aside from this, attitudes, perceived severity, self-efficacy, response efficacy, response cost, and subjective norms were found to influence their intention to prepare significantly. Furthermore, understanding natural calamities significantly influences an individual’s perceived severity. However, the geographical perspective, perceived vulnerability, perceived behavioral control, and cognitive ergonomics were found to have an insignificant influence on protective behavior for natural calamities. The study findings could be used as a basis for household units or the national government to build disaster management plans and resilience programs. Aside from this, it can also be used by researchers as a basis for exploring other areas that may affect the protective behavior of individuals to prepare for natural calamities worldwide.

Инновационные идеи в инженерной психологии и когнитивной эргономике (к 95-летию со дня рождения Б.Ф. Ломова)

The main milestones of the scientific biography of Boris Fedorovich Lomov, one of the founders and pioneers in the field of engineering and psychological research in domestic science, the first director of the Institute of Psychology (Moscow), created by the scientist in the system of the Academy of Sciences, are highlighted. The article states, that the formation of engineering psychology and ergonomics in our country is associated with the needs of scientific and technological progress, the wide development of space and military-technical developments.
 The article reviews B.F. Lomov’s main works in the field of engineering psychology and cognitive ergonomics (mental cognitive processes), developing methodological and theoretical principles of Russian psychology. The strategic promising areas of research being carried out in the scientific laboratories of the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in December 2021, are presented.
 It is concluded that the productive use of B.F. Lomov’s concepts gives the opportunity to the successors of his ideas to keep up with the times and solve scientific problems in the field of engineering psychology and cognitive ergonomics in accordance with modern demands of practice in the triad: theory-experiment-practice.

Innovative ideas in engineering psychology and cognitive ergonomics (to the 95th anniversary of B.F. Lomov)

The main milestones of the scientific biography of Boris Fedorovich Lomov, one of the founders and pioneers in the field of engineering and psychological research in domestic science, the first director of the Institute of Psychology (Moscow), created by the scientist in the system of the Academy of Sciences, are highlighted. The article states, that the formation of engineering psychology and ergonomics in our country is associated with the needs of scientific and technological progress, the wide development of space and military-technical developments.
 The article reviews B.F. Lomov’s main works in the field of engineering psychology and cognitive ergonomics (mental cognitive processes), developing methodological and theoretical principles of Russian psychology. The strategic promising areas of research being carried out in the scientific laboratories of the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in December 2021, are presented.
 It is concluded that the productive use of B.F. Lomov’s concepts gives the opportunity to the successors of his ideas to keep up with the times and solve scientific problems in the field of engineering psychology and cognitive ergonomics in accordance with modern demands of practice in the triad: theory-experiment-practice.

Short simple forms in an applied analytical product

The article deals with important questions of methodology in applied analytics. The author considers the imperative of brevity and simplicity of syllable, style, and form in an applied analytical product. The article touches upon the concepts of cognitive intelligibility (comprehensibility), cognitive fluency, and cognitive ergonomics of the text of an applied analytical product. The author shows some ways to simplify the text.

Guidelines for the integration of cognitive ergonomics in the design of human-centered and collaborative robotics applications

In the context of Industry 4.0, cognitive ergonomics is crucial for improving the working conditions and the psychosocial well-being of operators interacting with even more advanced and smart machines, as well as for the enhancement of production performances. Nevertheless, this topic is often neglected or ignored when implementing human-robot interaction in industrial settings. Starting from the results obtained from previous studies, this work proposes a structured process to develop and preliminarily validate a set of guidelines to support non-experts in human factors at the early stages of the design of human-centered and collaborative applications. A systematic analysis of the scientific literature has been performed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers to identify relevant results on the topic. Successively, the guidelines have been developed starting from such an analysis by considering the target group and the final aim of the work. This phase involved the analysis, classification, summary, and abstraction of relevant statements and results from the selected articles, as well as the update of the previous set of guidelines. The guidelines have been preliminarily validated by an external team of researchers currently doing research in the field. Qualitative feedback on understandability and relevance has been collected to improve the guidelines before further investigations.

Cognitive Ergonomics on Employee Wellbeing: A Literature Review

Ergonomics is a strategy to reduce occupational disease rates and improving general working conditions for employees in order to improve productivity. Employee participation is often suggested to improve employees’ relations to the organization. Research shows that ergonomics adoption on workplace to enhance the productivity level by reducing health related problem and building employee friendly work environment is milestone to enhance employee performance. However, it is less known in context of Nepal. This study aims to explore cognitive ergonomics on employee wellbeing. For this study, research papers are exhaustively selected from scientific databases like Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct and Google Scholar by developing criteria for each component to ensure the idea goes in-depth and analyzes the roles of the importance of cognitive ergonomics in promoting employee performance. In the process of paper selection, we set a criterion that the paper should directly or indirectly comprise cognitive ergonomics on employee wellbeing. The papers available in the database from 2000 to 2022 are mostly reviewed in order to complete this study. This study concludes that cognitive ergonomics is a subset of the greater subject of human factors and ergonomic sciences; however, it is still a relatively untapped resource for enhancing employee wellbeing. If planned effectively, cognitive ergonomics may make major contributions to increasing job performance, lean operations, productivity, and, ultimately, establishing safer and healthier workplaces in the industry.

Literature Review on Ergonomics, Ergonomics Practices, and Employee Performance

Background: The modern history of ergonomics can be traced back to the world war from 1939 to 1945. From the 1960s to the 1990s, there were many changes made to ergonomics. Some of these were cognitive ergonomics, organizational ergonomics, positive ergonomics, and spiritual ergonomics. Ergonomics is becoming more of an issue in organizations in both developed and developing countries since the rise of occupational safety and health. Today, every company in the world puts more thought into making their workplaces safe.
 Objective: The goal of this study is to fill in the gaps in the evidence between ergonomics and employee well-being, focusing on ergonomics, ergonomic practices, and employee performance.
 Methods: This study uses an exploratory research design and gathers information from secondary sources to back up the title. Research papers are carefully chosen from scientific databases like Scopus, Web of Science, Science Direct, and Google Scholar by making criteria for each part to make sure the idea goes into depth and analyzes the role of ergonomics in improving employee performance.
 Results: Most research is done on physical ergonomics and organizational ergonomics. When people do research on ergonomics, they don't think much about how people act and think. Most ergonomics research is also done in industrial and developed countries, which makes sense. When it comes to research and use of ergonomics, developing countries are a long way behind. Most small businesses in developing countries don't care about ergonomics in the workplace.
 Conclusion: Accessing and improving ergonomics in the workplace could improve employee performance and productivity while reducing burnout, absenteeism, and turnover rates. So, it's important to study ergonomics more, especially for places like Nepal.

An Online Framework for Cognitive Load Assessment in Industrial Tasks

The ongoing trend towards Industry 4.0 has revolutionised ordinary workplaces, profoundly changing the role played by humans in the production chain. Research on ergonomics in industrial settings mainly focuses on reducing the operator's physical fatigue and discomfort to improve throughput and avoid safety hazards. However, as the production complexity increases, the cognitive resources demand and mental workload could compromise the operator's performance and the efficiency of the shop floor workplace. State-of-the-art methods in cognitive science work offline and/or involve bulky equipment hardly deployable in industrial settings. This paper presents a novel method for online assessment of cognitive load in manufacturing, primarily assembly, by detecting patterns in human motion directly from the input images of a stereo camera. Head pose estimation and skeleton tracking are exploited to investigate the workers' attention and assess hyperactivity and unforeseen movements. Pilot experiments suggest that our factor assessment tool provides significant insights into workers' mental workload, even confirmed by correlations with physiological and performance measurements. According to data gathered in this study, a vision-based cognitive load assessment has the potential to be integrated into the development of mechatronic systems for improving cognitive ergonomics in manufacturing.

Representativity and univocity of traffic signs and their effect of trajectory movement in a tracking task: informative signs

The importance of how cognitive processes (Reasoning) influence on the understanding and the mental representation of road-side elements in form of the movement effects on the path driving must be studied in-depth. Literature shows that the key point to explain the influence of attention on movement is the meaning of the object being processed; literature also shows that the Reasoning with those cues we pay attention to has an effect on driving. By using a driving-simulation task, traffic signs have been tested on their effect on movement. Results show that the least-representative-of-their-meaning signs deviate participants´ movement path more intensively than the most-representative-of-their-meaning signs. Conclusions: Traffic accidents are well-known for their. The results here reported help to improve the cognitive Ergonomics of every road element, specially, traffic signs.

Additive manufacturing for prostheses development: state of the art

PurposeMedical devices are undergoing rapid changes because of the increasing affordability of advanced technologies like additive manufacturing (AM) and three-dimensional scanning. New avenues are available for providing solutions and comfort that were not previously conceivable. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the research on developing prostheses using AM to understand the opportunities and challenges in the domain. Various studies on prosthesis development using AM are investigated to explore the scope of integration of AM in prostheses development.Design/methodology/approachA review of key publications from the past two decades was conducted. Integration of AM and prostheses development is reviewed from the technologies, materials and functionality point of view to identify challenges, opportunities and future scope.FindingsAM in prostheses provides superior physical and cognitive ergonomics and reduced cost and delivery time. Patient-specific, lightweight solutions for complex designs improve comfort, functionality and clinical outcomes. Compared to existing procedures and methodologies, using AM technologies in prosthetics could benefit a large population.Originality/valueThis paper helps investigate the impact of AM and related technology in the field of prosthetics and can also be viewed as a collection of relevant medical research and findings.

In the pixel zone: Perception of digital design

Abstract Since the beginning of the millennium, the internet has undeniably influenced everyday life as well as the creative fields, in countless ways that have already been exhaustively discussed. In this paper, we discuss the term postdigital, which is relevant to anchoring the perception of digital design. Numerous theoretical works are dealing with the terminology of postdigital, with conceptualisations differing from one another. Post-digitality offers a set of speculative strategies with the intention of building a complex architecture for thinking and creating under contemporary conditions: how to critically consider, contextualize, and shift the perception of new technologies as part of the existing culture. Digital design has become an integral part of everyday reality: websites, mobile devices, tablets, but also products and services that use digital interfaces as interactive communication channels between a human and a machine. These interfaces require a specific approach to design. The term digital design covers the design of the entire range of digital products and services and is understood as a complex set of many disciplines: user interface, interaction design, information architecture, user experience design, visual design, web design, app design, or game design. The boundaries between the different areas of design are blurred and permeable, and although their mutual interaction can be beneficial, it is necessary to clearly differentiate between graphic and digital design. Digital design grows out of the principles of graphic (visual) design and introduces additional knowledge and very specific principles based on the nature of the digital medium and the transdisciplinary field of cognitive ergonomics.

Cognitive Task Analysis: Eliciting Management Cognition

Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) is a powerful qualitative methodological approach which has the potential to add to management researchers’ knowledge of in-depth interviewing techniques, whilst addressing the importance of producing rigorous research that has relevance for management practice. Developed within the Naturalistic Decision-Making community, this set of semi-structured interviewing techniques have much to offer to management researchers. Distinct from traditional semi-structured interview methods, CTA is designed to identify the knowledge requirements that underpin expertise in complex work domains. CTA is underutilised by management scholars, contrary to other applied social science disciplines in cognitive psychology, human factors, and ergonomics where it is widely used. This paper aims to advance understanding of these pragmatic techniques which are theoretically rigorous and easy to use, with results which have high face validity with practitioners. First, we provide an overview of CTA as a robust methodological approach to research oriented around knowledge elicitation. Second, we provide two examples of how the CTA approach has been used to research management; specifically using the Critical Decision Method to explore management in high-stakes environments; and an Applied Cognitive Task Analysis to explore global strategic leadership. In ending, we highlight potential avenues for using CTA for innovative management research.

Reconceptualizing breaks in translation: Breaking down or breaking through?

Various observable on-screen translator behaviors, such as extended pauses in activity, mouse hovering, cycling through tabs/windows, and different kinds of scrolling, all common occurrences during task completion, have been regarded as potential problem indicators (cf. Angelone, 2018). Their presence is often attributed to a breakdown in declarative and/or procedural knowledge at a concrete problem nexus (Angelone and Shreve, 2011). Inspired by recent translation process research on aspects of cognitive ergonomics, pause-related cognitive rhythms (Muñoz and Cardona, 2018), and Kussmaul’s notion of parallel activity in the translation process (1995), we re-examine such phenomena through a different lens. We propose these phenomena may represent the loci of volitional, potentially strategic breaks rather than problem indicators per se. That is, the breaks observed are not necessarily linked to specific problems, but rather to subjects’ cognitive resource management. Our findings suggest that apparently random behaviors, seemingly unrelated to the task, generally have a positive impact on performance from both process and product perspectives. We refer to these breaks as instances of cognitive suspension, and, based on our findings, propose that translators engage in them as a refresh mechanism when performance has either waned or runs the risk of doing so. We start by examining cognitive suspension in terms of types and scope. This is followed by an empirical analysis of its direct impact on translation performance, as established by number of errors, number of generated characters, and number of typos within established windows (areas of interest) that precede and follow its occurrence.

Participatory Detection of Language Barriers towards Multilingual Sustainability(ies) in Africa

After decades of political, economic, and scientific efforts, humanity has not gotten any closer to global sustainability. With less than a decade to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) deadline of the 2030 Agenda, we show that global development agendas may be getting lost in translation, from their initial formulation to their final implementation. Sustainability science does not “speak” most of the 2000 languages from Africa, where the lack of indigenous terminology hinders global efforts such as the COVID-19 pandemic fight. Sociolinguistics, social psychology, cognitive ergonomics, geography, environmental sciences, and artificial intelligence (AI) are all relevant disciplinary fields to uncover the “foreign language effect” that hinders the implementation of the SDGs in Africa. We make the case for detecting and addressing language barriers towards multilingual sustainability in Africa by (1) exploring the ”foreign language effect” among African decision-makers and recognising their alternative social representations about sustainability; and (2) detecting Western language stereotypes about sustainability. We propose rethinking SDG-related scientific notions through participatory natural language processing (NLP) and the study of African social representations of sustainability, thus enabling a more inclusive and efficient approach to “sustainability(ies)”.