Current Human Factors Research Articles

Bayesian Highest Density Intervals of Take-Over Times for Highly Automated Driving in Different Traffic Densities

Current human factors research on automated driving aims to ensure its safe introduction into road traffic. Although informative results are crucial for this purpose, most studies rely on point estimates and dichotomous reject-nonreject decisions that have been declared obsolete by more recent statistical approaches like new statistics (Cumming, 2014) or Bayesian parameter estimation (Kruschke, 2015). In this work, we show the objective advantages of Bayesian parameter estimation and demonstrate its abundance of information on parameters. In Study 1, we estimate take-over times with a relatively uninformed prior distribution. In Study 2, the resulting posterior distributions of Study 1 were then used as informed prior distributions for interval estimations of mean, standard deviation and distribution shape of take-over time in different traffic densities. We obtained 95 % credible interval widths between 490 ms and 600 ms for mean take-over times, depending on the condition. These intervals include the 95 % most probable values of the mean take-over time and represent a quantification of uncertainty in the estimation. Given the data and the experimental conditions, a take-over requires most likely 2.51 seconds [2.27, 2.76] when there is no traffic, 3.40 seconds [3.11, 3.71] in medium traffic and 3.50 seconds [3.21, 3.78] in high traffic. Bayesian model comparison with Bayes Factor is discussed as an alternative approach in conclusion.

Assessment of the Impacts from the Addition of Novel Assistive Technologies in Mental Health Care

This proceeding seeks to understand changes to the current model of mental health care that will occur if computer programs and smartphone applications that augment therapy become widely used in practice. Current human factors research in home healthcare, as well as the application of the SEIPS 2.0 model to the current system of mental health care are used to predict the potential risks involved in these new technologies. This proceeding explores technologies that seek to assist in normal treatment protocols as well as technologies that are intended to replace normal psychological visits. Using this model to compare assistive versus replacement technologies for mental health treatment, it was found that replacement technologies pose greater risk and should be thoroughly assessed within the system context of mental health. This paper points to areas that should be explored further to assess the safety of these applications and to fuel designs that are safe and usable by a broader population.

A conceptual model for the role of storytelling in design: leveraging narrative inquiry in user-centered design (UCD)

The Prevention through Design (PtD) initiative identifies the design stage as an opportunity to “design out” hazards and risks. An early emphasis on safety enables the reduction of opportunities for error and misuse in healthcare technology, and the corresponding safety and well-being of patients and providers. A pre-condition for preventive design is a deep understanding of users’ characteristics, goals, needs, and contexts of use. Standards recommend a user-centered design process coupled with ethnographic methods (e.g., self-report, observation) to gain this knowledge. However, current human factors methods may not provide an efficient means to explore the problem space during the concept stage. On-site observations require identification of an appropriate observation site, stakeholder buy-in, and IRB approval with adherence to HIPAA regulations. Off-site simulations require task scope, which limits design exploration before it has been initiated. Recommended self-report methods (e.g., interviews, focus groups) also have limitations. In previous work we found that the elicitation of experiences through “storytelling” resulted in the identification of significantly more context of use information than semi-structured interviews. The overall goal of this work is to present storytelling as a method rooted in narrative inquiry that aids designers’ understanding of usability requirements. We present a conceptual model for the role of storytelling in design informed by a synthesis of narrative and design research and apply the model to healthcare technology. We present the Design+Storytelling framework as a means for healthcare designers to operationalize storytelling in their work.

Evaluation of treatment outcomes of triple-negative breast cancer.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. Treatment responses are variable depending on tumor morphological characteristics, clinical characteristics, and hormonal receptor levels. In current medical practice, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PGR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) levels have been identified as important prognostic factors; they can change prognosis and treatment modalities. In this study, the prognostic factors of patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) were examined retrospectively. Some 110 cases with negative prognostic and predictive proteins (ER, PGR, and HER2) were included in this study. Median follow-up was 56 months. Recurrences, overall survival, and prognostic factors were evaluated. We revealed in our triple-negative series that nodal status, tumor size, whole breast radiation doses, and type of surgery are the most useful prognostic markers. Triple-negative breast cancers, especially basal-like subtypes, have bad prognoses. They have high histopathological grades and high risk of invasion. This group can make early metastases and expected survival is usually short. We need to focus on new treatment strategy modalities on this group, and pretreatment values of different prognostic markers are well-identified, such as androgen receptors, basal cytokeratin expression, and BRCA gene status.

A Method to Select Human–System Interfaces for Nuclear Power Plants

Abstract The new generation of nuclear power plants (NPPs) will likely make use of state-of-the-art technologies in many areas of the plant. The analysis, design, and selection of advanced human–system interfaces (HSIs) constitute an important part of power plant engineering. Designers need to consider the new capabilities afforded by these technologies in the context of current regulations and new operational concepts, which is why they need a more rigorous method by which to plan the introduction of advanced HSIs in NPP work areas. Much of current human factors research stops at the user interface and fails to provide a definitive process for integration of end user devices with instrumentation and control and operational concepts. The current lack of a clear definition of HSI technology, including the process for integration, makes characterization and implementation of new and advanced HSIs difficult. This paper describes how new design concepts in the nuclear industry can be analyzed and how HSI technologies associated with new industrial processes might be considered. It also describes a basis for an understanding of human as well as technology characteristics that could be incorporated into a prioritization scheme for technology selection and deployment plans.

Human Factors in the Design and Evaluation of Bioinformatics Tools

Human factors contribute significantly to the information visualization design considerations and usability evaluation process, and have been shown to play an important role in the design, development and quality assurance of bioinformatics tools. Despite the technological advances in bioinformatics computational methods, humans are an indispensable part of the data mining and decision making process. The complexity of biology data visualization can make perception and analysis a complex cognitive activity for professionals in the bioinformatics domain. Information Visualization (InfoVis) can provide valuable assistance for data analysis in bioinformatics by visually depicting sequences, genomes, alignments, and macromolecular structures. InfoVis coupled with interaction modalities of bioinformatics tools also impact the efficiency and effectiveness of decision-making tasks in applied bioinformatics computing. However, the way people perceive and interact with bioinformatics tools can strongly influence their understanding of the complex data as well as the perceived usability and accessibility of these systems. In this paper, we present a synthesis of research studies and initiatives that have recently examined human factors in interaction and visualization for bioinformatics tools, particularly in perception-based design. Although bioinformatics’ visualization and interaction design research that involves human factors is considered in its infancy, a plethora of potentially promising areas have yet to be explored. The aims of this paper are to review current human factors research in interaction, usability and visualization within bioinformatics tools to provide a basis for future investigations in systems and software engineering of bioinformatics tools, and to identify promising areas for future research directions in interaction design of bioinformatics tools.

Implementation of Human System Integration (HSI) and ‘Non-functional Characteristics’ into the Systems Engineering Lifecycle - A Practical Approach at Airbus Defence and Space

This paper provides an overview of the process, practices, developments and synergies that Airbus Defence and Space are implementing Human System Integration (HSI) into the Continuous Engineering /Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) throughout the company. The paper highlights these developments, which include internal research programmes, European Union funded research projects, Airbus internal Synergy project. This research includes an EU funded 3 year project HoliDes - Holistic Human Factors and System Design of Adaptive Cooperative Human Machine Systems. Continuous engineering within Airbus has included various corporate and divisional Synergy programs and lean and agile initiatives. As our business is defined by Multiple Portfolio products, supplied from multi countries, the MBSE process had to speed up delivery and reduce overall cost. The Airbus process models needed significant amendment due to products supplied via multiple business lines throughout the company. This problem is exacerbated by varying requirements of four national defence requirements, who impose restrictions on the use of Architectural Frameworks (NAF/MODAF/DODAF) and supporting tools. Our Human System Integration (HSI) is continuing from the initial Human View Architectural Framework research to include the nine HSI domains. These nine domains overlap with our current Human factors research and will now allow us to pull in our Non-functional work into our Systems Engineering lifecycle. This paper highlights the research projects Airbus Space and Defence are incorporating in to our overall strategy, these include internal R&D funding and European Union funded research programs. These research projects have highlighted several areas of interest these include, stochastic modelling with respect to Human System Integration and Human views, verification and analysis of emergent behaviour and non-functional properties, which conforms with our own work on non-functional requirements and finally the use of System of System Formal Methods for parts of the lifecycle.

Enhanced ergonomics approaches for product design: a user experience ecosystem perspective and case studies

This paper first discusses the major inefficiencies faced in current human factors and ergonomics (HFE) approaches: (1) delivering an optimal end-to-end user experience (UX) to users of a solution across its solution lifecycle stages; (2) strategically influencing the product business and technology capability roadmaps from a UX perspective and (3) proactively identifying new market opportunities and influencing the platform architecture capabilities on which the UX of end products relies. In response to these challenges, three case studies are presented to demonstrate how enhanced ergonomics design approaches have effectively addressed the challenges faced in current HFE approaches. Then, the enhanced ergonomics design approaches are conceptualised by a user-experience ecosystem (UXE) framework, from a UX ecosystem perspective. Finally, evidence supporting the UXE, the advantage and the formalised process for executing UXE and methodological considerations are discussed.Practitioner Summary: This paper presents enhanced ergonomics approaches to product design via three case studies to effectively address current HFE challenges by leveraging a systematic end-to-end UX approach, UX roadmaps and emerging UX associated with prioritised user needs and usages. Thus, HFE professionals can be more strategic, creative and influential.

Fragmentation of patient safety research: a critical reflection of current human factors approaches to patient handover.

The integration of human factors science in research and interventions aimed at increased patient safety has led to considerable improvements. However, some challenges to patient safety persist and may require human factors experts to critically reflect upon their predominant approaches to research and improvement. This paper is a call to start a discussion of these issues in the area of patient handover. Briefly reviewing recent handover research shows that while these studies have provided valuable insights into the communication practices for a range of handover situations, the predominant research strategy of studying isolated handover episodes replicates the very problem of fragmentation of care that the studies aim to overcome. Thus, there seems to be a need for a patient-centred approach to handover research that aims to investigate the interdependencies of handover episodes during a series of transitions occurring along the care path. Such an approach may contribute to novel insights and help to increase the effectiveness and sustainability of interventions to improve handover.Significance for public healthWhile much of public health research has a preventive focus, health services research is generally concerned with the ways in which care is provided to those requiring treatment. This paper calls for a patient-centred approach to research on patient handover; a significant contributor to adverse events in healthcare. It is argued that this approach has the potential to improve our understanding of handover processes along the continuum of care. Thus, it can provide a scientific foundation for effective improvements in handover that are likely to reduce patient harm and help to maintain patient safety.

Postures and Motions Library Development for Verification of Ground Crew Human Factors Requirements

Spacecraft and launch vehicle ground processing activities require a variety of unique human activities. These activities are being documented in a primitive motion capture library. The library will be used by human factors engineering analysts to infuse real to life human activities into the CAD models to verify ground systems human factors requirements. As the primitive models are being developed for the library, the project has selected several current human factors issues to be addressed for the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion launch systems. This paper explains how the motion capture of unique ground systems activities is being used to verify the human factors engineering requirements for ground systems used to process the SLS and Orion vehicles, and how the primitive models will be applied to future spacecraft and launch vehicle processing.

Trends in Decision Making Research

Cognitive engineering and decision making has become central to current human factors and ergonomics research and practice. This trend parallels exciting developments in decision making research in general. Experimental economics and judgment and decision making research boom academically and gain much public attention, while theories and economic models of individual choice are expanding and gaining recognition in applications and practical solutions to real-world problems. This symposium brings together three leading figures in different traditions of research in decision making: Gary Klein represents the naturalistic decision making approach. Frank Yates represents research on behavioral decision making and heuristics and biases. Alvin E. Roth, the 2012 Noble laureate for economics, represents game theory and market design applications in economics. The invited speakers will present their views of the different research traditions in decision making and they will provide some thoughts on the trends and possible future developments of research, which we hope will provoke new ideas and discussions in Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making in HFES.

Fitts Education Award Winners: Teaching Human Factors and Ergonomics

Every day, current Human Factors & Ergonomics (HF/E) professionals work to foster the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for their students to be future HF/E professionals. Experienced HF/E educators possess a wealth of knowledge of what works in regards to teaching their particular topics. Unfortunately, this valuable in-domain teaching knowledge and expertise often does not get disseminated to other HF/E educators. The purpose of the current panel is to provide a forum for professionals, who have been recognized for teaching excellence, to share their ideas and approaches with other educators. The panelists are recent winners of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society’s Paul M. Fitts Education Award, an award that recognizes individuals for outstanding contributions to HF/E education. The discussion will focus on three themes: strategies to integrate practical problems into the education process, suggestions for improving instructional effectiveness via mentoring skills, and HF/E teaching challenges.

Cumulative Knowledge and Progress in Human Factors

This review provides a cumulative perspective on current human factors research by first briefly acknowledging previous Annual Review articles. We show that several recent conceptual advances are an outgrowth of the information-processing approach adopted by the field and present several areas of current research that are built directly on prior work. Topic areas that provide fundamental tools for human factors analyses are summarized, and several current application areas are reviewed. We end by considering alternatives to the information-processing approach that have been proposed and placing those alternatives in context. We argue that the information-processing language provides the foundation that has enabled much of the growth in human factors. This growth reflects a cumulative development of concepts and methods that continues today.

Cognitive Metrics Profiling

Cognitive Metrics Profiling promises a new approach to minimizing the cognitive workload of interactive systems. By metering high-fidelity computational cognitive models of embodied cognition, Cognitive Metrics Profiles provide a theory-based prediction of the transient changes in workload demanded by dynamic task environments. Although establishing the reliability and validity of this new approach will not be trivial, our profiles stand on the shoulders of the ACT-R architecture of cognition. More than 30-yrs of research have gone into the ACT line of theories. Over the last decade, hundreds of researchers have used ACT-R to build and test models of human cognition. Hence, although many of the details of the architecture are certainly incomplete, much of ACT-R is approximately correct. We expect that the predictions of a Cognitive Metrics Profile based on ACT-R will provide a better estimate of cognitive workload than the estimates used in current human factors practice.

Virtual Reality Simulators in Medicine: Current and Future Concerns

There has been recent surge in the development of medical virtual reality simulators. These systems incorporate visual, auditory, and haptic displays and enable users to learn the skills needed to perform medical and surgical procedures in much the same way that flight simulators facilitate pilot training. These devices offer numerous training benefits to the user and also have the potential to improve patient safety. Despite these advantages, the medical community has been slow to embrace this technology. In fact, many of the current systems appear to showcase what can be done from a technological perspective instead of what should be done from the user's perspective. Thus, the purpose of this panel is to bring together experts who use, evaluate, and train with medical VR simulators to discuss current and future human factors concerns that impact the acceptance of this new technology.

Intrinsic motivation and human-centred design

This essay seeks to clarify the paradigm shift from object-centred to human-centred research and design. It suggests abandoning the technological determinism that underlies the industrial era conceptions of human–machine interactions, which still informs much of current human factors or ergonomic research and making room for models of human–machine interactions that are derived from the human use of language, conversation and play. The essay demonstrates the significance of this shift by contrasting two ways users account for their involvement with artifacts: extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. It contends that intrinsic motivation largely escapes the traditionally object-centred scientific research methods. To inquire into the use of intrinsically motivating artifacts and aid the design of artifacts that have a chance to be intrinsically motivating, therefore, demands taking a different epistemological path, one that acknowledges the crucial use of language. This essay outlines such a path, pursues it and ends with practical suggestions for the design of artifacts that enable intrinsically motivating interfaces to arise.

Human factors in visualization research.

Visualization can provide valuable assistance for data analysis and decision making tasks. However, how people perceive and interact with a visualization tool can strongly influence their understanding of the data as well as the system's usefulness. Human factors therefore contribute significantly to the visualization process and should play an important role in the design and evaluation of visualization tools. Several research initiatives have begun to explore human factors in visualization, particularly in perception-based design. Nonetheless, visualization work involving human factors is in its infancy, and many potentially promising areas have yet to be explored. Therefore, this paper aims to 1) review known methodology for doing human factors research, with specific emphasis on visualization, 2) review current human factors research in visualization to provide a basis for future investigation, and 3) identify promising areas for future research.

The aesthetic and the ethic dimensions of human factors and design

This article discusses the relationship between aesthetics, ethics, and the traditional research issues in human factors, and argues that it is important and beneficial both to the human society and to the human factors profession that we incorporate the aesthetic and the ethic dimensions explicitly and consciously in human factors research and practice. These two dimensions can help us put the current human factors research in a larger context. We can see more clearly the limitations of current research and the needs and challenges for research in new areas. The two dimensions also offer some new perspectives from which we can examine the current work systems and products, explain the demise of old work systems and products, and predict the possible emergence of new work systems and products.

Human Factors Certification in Civil Aircraft

The legal version of validation is often called certification. This paper will look at some of the current human factors issues facing the civil aviation industry in a very safe system. Issues to be addressed include the real goals of certification, methods of compliance, automation, and needed changes.

Development of a Railway Ergonomics Control Room Assessment Package (Recap)

This paper discusses one of the tools developed as part of a Railway Ergonomics Control Assessment Package (RECAP) which will be used to benchmark current human factors operations and assess the impact of new centralised control rooms on the performance and safety of the railway network. The questionnaire included sections covering areas such as workplace design, work environmental conditions, work attitude, occupational stress and teamwork. Results from initial analysis indicated that a number of workplace factors, such as workplace design, job content and teamwork, had an impact on employee well-being, including general health and job satisfaction. A number of issues associated with questionnaire design and administration were also highlighted.