Introduction
Proctor and Vu state that the evolution of psychology has been well documented, noticeably since Kuhn coined the term 'paradigm' in the 1960's. Emphasis on new paradigms and new paradigm shifts have been essential to the advancement of science. An important implication to remember in paradigm shifts is that "past research is of little relevance because it is from 'old' paradigms" (pg. 3). New and increasingly sophisticated technologies reinforce the view within human factors.
Proctor and Vu indicate that even though paradigm shifts are popular conceptually in science, contemporary philosophies do not operate in this way. Proctor and Vu assume the contrary view that progress in scientific psychology is general, and in human factors specifically, is cumulative. Previous editions of the Annual Review provide a necessary context for understanding that building contemporary research relies on knowledge from past research.
Reviews on engineering psychology
Work published between 1958 and 1966 include sections of human machine systems and automation. Within those topics, the focus involved basic human performance and core factors related to display and control design. Research on space travel, stress as an effect of performance, monitoring and vigilance, and multi-operator systems ran concurrently. The term 'human performance' was added to Engineering Psychology in the 1970's to better explain its scientific aspect. Human performance remained popular, but the weighting of complex task environments and higher-level cognitive processes increased. Focus was paid to attention, mental workload and decision-making processes. Human computer interaction (HCI) was introduced, originating from cognitive and experimental psychology, and continues to present day. Descriptions on information foraging and computer-supported cooperative work became richer as group and team work was examined. Proctor and Vu argue that "[t]he articles bear out our view that research in human factors has evolved and produced an ever-increasing understanding of human performance in applied settings" (pg. 4).
Human information processing and related approaches
The human information processing approach characterises humans as a communications systems with various and distinct processes, and is similar to the way we analyse machine processing. Developing a language that considers all human performance is vital to the development of human factors. Contemporary cognitive theories use biological mechanisms and neural activity recordings in experimental methods to determine neural underpinnings. By recording brain activity during the performance of complex tasks, researchers can enhance the phenomena that concern human factors. Specific gene detailing allows for insight into the efficiency of brain functions. Measures of neural activity determine individual cognition in real-time states. Technology can be adapted to meet current cognitive needs.
Critics argue that too much attention has been placed on adaptive evolutionary functions in cognitive mechanisms. As they are adaptations, consideration should be paid to the functions they would have served in survival of the fittest. Proctor and Vu consider this processing as highly modular. Interpretations of findings suggest that memory can be fine-tuned to recall information that is processed for survival. Evolutionary psychologists suggest that memory recall is considerably more efficient when information is consistent with functional adaptations to the processing system.
The term information foraging denotes the strategies that humans apply to gather information and focuses on how individuals navigate information structures that lead to the understanding and improvement of human information interaction. The resulting technology is a better match for both human capability and strategy.
Social factors are considered significant when studying task and activity performance. Social cognition is the identified way in which individuals make sense of each other. Studies show that most social cognition occurs as an unconscious process. Categorisations are made automatically and behavioural associations ensue. Although data is available to establish the correlation between unconscious influences and behaviour, it is uncertain whether mental states are similarly unconscious. Current research has taken particular focus in considering human characteristics when designing IT systems (so much so that a special issue of Applied Ergonomics was warranted). Significant interest has been paid to the area of shared cognition (common goals, awareness of issues and status) that is necessary for team performance.
Proctor and Vu note the research on cognitive paradigms in the 1960's was undertaken by "cold, affectless thinking" representative of the era. Research on the cognitive aspects of emotional vulnerability have grown extensively since then, and research has kept current by analysing selective processes of emotional information. Khalid indicates that there is close interplay between affect and cognition. Affect determines our representations of the social world around us and how we maintain them in memory. Cognitive processing is the other component to affective processing (e.g. reactive and proactive response). Human physical, cognitive and emotional needs must be satisfied when considering affective reactions in design processes. Tutoring systems, using avatars that display emotion, have been found to be effective in promoting learning.
Performance of perceptual-motor tasks
Although it appeared that interest in perpetual motor studies waned after 1976, current research indicates that understanding of the topic has changed.
Vigilance
Mackworth studied human factors in his work on vigilance in sonar and radar operators. He questioned why so many submarines went undetected. Operators were less vigilant over time, and this was initially attributed to the monotonous nature of the task. Diligence wanes after fifteen minutes. Current research proposes that it should be partially attributed to the high mental demands of maintaining a vigil.
Stimulus response compatibility
Studies on mapping stimuli responses and spatial compatibility indicate that performance is better when responses are mapped to the corresponding stimuli. Proctor and Vu proposed stimuli to be associated with location. Location can be defined physically, with words, arrows or motions that positively indicate the information location. Research has shown that the location of the action goal is critical to compatibility effects (e.g. operating hand held tools that require the hand to go in the opposite direction to the tip of the tool). The required action and movement have a compatible effect.
Multiple task performance
Although there are a variety of studies in the area of multiple tasking and human factors, trials generally focus on dual-task performance. These trials are focused towards psychological refractory period (PRP) effects (e.g. if stimuli for both tasks are received within a few hundred milliseconds of each other, the response for the second stimuli is delayed and cannot begin until the first task has been accomplished). It is undetermined whether this response is naturally occurring cognitive architecture or a result of coordinating performance for both tasks. Capacity sharing models view the bottleneck as a resource with limited capacity that can allocate resources for two tasks by devoting different amounts to central resources rather than focusing on consecutive tasks. Dual-task performance is better when tasks are dissimilar. Executive control processes are critical when tasks cannot be carried out together. The delay caused between switching and interleaving tasks costs, Proctor and Vu state.
PRP and other phenomena associated with attention exemplify the difficulty individuals have concentrating on one task while performing another (e.g. the use of communication devices when driving).
Aimed movements and Fitt's law
Proctor and Vu define Fitt's Law as movement time being "a logarithmic function of an index difficulty, which is positively related to movement distance and inversely related to the area of the target" (pg. 9) (e.g. how long it will take to achieve using a computer mouse to point to something onscreen). Fitt's Law has proven to be highly applicable in human computer interactions, so prediction times are seen to be accurate.
Summary
Proctor and Vu observe that contemporary research has been built on the foundation of past research. Several areas of study have emerged and are essential sources of knowledge in basic and applied knowledge of human factors.
Awareness, attentional control and automaticity
Capacity in human information processing is a limited resource, and much work has been directed around information overload.
Mental workload
Recent work in this area has been centred around application in the transportation industry, interface design, job design, medicine, etc. Findings show that individuals can maintain their performance when conditions of high workload exist if they apply information-processing strategies so that attention is concentrated on primary, and not peripheral, tasks. Proctor and Vu state that mental workload assessment can be used to evaluate hypotheses on increasing/decreasing performance as discussed in work on vigilance.
Mental workload assessment has received general acceptance when evaluating how new tasks impact the effects of different design elements or exploring the consequences of using different levels of automation.
Situation awareness
Definitions indicate that situation awareness is the complete awareness of how an individual can relate to the objects/elements that surround her with full understanding of current and projected status of each. The focus is on the operator's mental representation generated by external awareness (fundamental information processes).
Durso, Rawson and Girotto emphasise that more attention should be paid to "the information processing component because awareness implies that only explicit information is important, whereas comprehension allows for an influence of implicit information as well" (pg. 11). Durson, et al. indicate that situation awareness be treated as a cognitive construct as applied to successful system designs in aviation and medicine.
Team performance relies on individual and shared member awareness. Current issues in measuring team awareness remain complex and challenging.
Multimodal and adaptive display design
Proctor and Vu state that "[a]dvances in technology have allowed large amounts of information to be made available to people for performing a variety of tasks and have provided novel ways of inputting and outputting information from interfaces" (pg. 11). They use multimodal warning signals that alert drivers to possible hazards as examples. The information displayed activates the use of sensory and response modality systems. Proctor and Vu indicate that workload of an individual seemed to be least when pulse rate was considered medium and trust in the system was greatest.
Interfaces are designed to interact and adapt to individual habits and performance needs. Adaptive systems benefit the user in the long term by automatically modifying. Future empirical studies in human information processing and multimodal information processing should be considered the foundation of system design.
Applications: next generation air transportation system and networked battlefield
Sociotechnical applications where knowledge of mental workload, situation awareness, display design and other aspects of human factors have been used in air transportation systems and for military purposes. Government agencies have provided much of the related support for transforming automation technologies in air traffic management systems and military battlefield operations.
Ubiquitous computing and accessibility
Proctor and Vu indicate that computing is ubiquitous and use will only increase in the future. Central to this is the design and implementation of systems that incorporate human factors.
The internet and the web
Proctor and Vu suggest that the most dramatic occurrence in technological change has been the development of a world wide portal to information and connectivity (the internet). Aspects of human computer interaction have led to considerations of design (e.g. structure and content of a site so that users can access and achieve their goals easily). Human factor research has been widely used for content preparation and to understand how individuals gather information when browsing or searching the web. Focus includes grouping and categorising of information, display of information, and navigational flow.
Miniaturisation and mobile technology
Wireless mobile devices are equipped with multiple functions that simulate computer technology on a smaller scale. Such devices have usability issues that stem from design guidelines that have been developed for large-scale computer systems. Bertini, Gabrielli and Kimani have identified four guidelines that evaluate the user-friendliness of mobile devices:
- ease of input;
- screen readability and ability to perceive information at a glance;
- flexibility, efficiency of use, and personalisation; and
- realistic error management.
Information security and privacy
Essential functioning of e-commerce (and similar) depends on secure practice. The use of passwords is encouraged to promote good practice. Proctor and Vu state that good passwords are an amalgam of digits, letters and characters often generated by the computer system. This makes them quite long, and very often individuals write them down defeating the purpose of a secure password. Proctor and Vu propose using a mnemonic technique where the user generates a sentence and uses (potentially) the first letter of each word to create a password. Using only the alphabet makes the password easy to crack. Proctor and Vu suggest attaching different values to the letters to make it more a more viable and secure option (e.g. the letter 't' is assigned a value of '5').
Privacy policies reassure users that personal details are used only in the capacity for which it was intended. Proctor and Vu note that most privacy policies exist only to satisfy legal requirements and are difficult for the end user to understand. Machine readable policies have been developed to standardise application programs that identify whether the site policy conforms to user privacy. Human factors are engaged in designing an interface that accurately selects items in the privacy policy and compares it with sites that support informed choices. As security and privacy interests are subject to end user cooperation, interactions need to be made simple and intuitive.
Individual differences and special populations
Differences in individual levels of information-processing are taken into account when designing (e.g. individuals with low working memory fair worse than individuals with a higher capacity when performing a variety of tasks). Research results indicate that there are two components to these differences:
- the ability to maintain activation of information in working memory; and
- the ability to search for information in long-term memory.
This emphasis on globalisation has had broader effects on cultural ergonomics. Social relations vary in different cultures and two significant factors are:
- individualism-collectivism - the degree to which an individual is influenced by other people; and
- power distance - the degree to which an individual will lower themselves before a power hierarchy and defer to decisions made by those higher up.
Age is seen to bring its own unique considerations. Perceptual-motor and memory processing demands require different interface designs for the site to be effective. Similarly targeted are individuals who are blind and deaf, or who have temporary or permanent disabilities. Universal access is a standard for designers who ensure "that the full benefits of the technologies have their maximal impact" (pg. 17).
Alternatives to the information processing approach
Alternative frameworks have frequently been used to enable researchers to gain another perspective when considering perceived deficiencies. Proctor and Vu indicate that most criticisms about the "information-processing approach are misguided and reflect the trends of research being conducted rather than fundamental faults in the approach itself. Although the perspectives offered by the alternative approaches are not bereft of value for specific purposes, the arguments for replacing the information-processing approach as the overall framework for studying basic and applied principles of human performance are erroneous" (pg.17).
Activity theory
In activity theory, emphasis is placed on the social context of human actions. Described as the focus of analysis and design in work environments and user activity, that the user helps create. Karwowski lists features that differentiate it from cognitive/information-processing approach:
- human activity is social in nature;
- cognition, external behaviour and motivation should be considered as components of a unitary system of activity;
- activity is a goal directed, self-regulated system, which cannot be studied as a reactive behaviour or computer-like information processing system; and
- activity should be analysed as a system; therefore, not only parametric but systematic methods of study are required.
- information processing provides the widely accepted foundation for the approach to social psychology known as social cognition;
- the information-processing approach is dedicated to explaining external behaviour; and
- research devoted to linking motivational concepts with information-processing has increased significantly.
The ecological approach, cognitive engineering and embodied cognition
In 1979, Gibson highlighted the constraints that individuals perceive from the natural environment. Emphasis is placed on the potential to action from environmental stimuli. This approach downplays lab conditions, which may be seen as a false (restrictive) environment. Cognitive engineering studies behaviour in naturally occurring environments. Ecological psychology "presents a richer view of human behaviour that is holistic and contextualised" (pg. 19). The physical environment is important in understanding the opportunities and constraints that an individual may contemplate. Proctor and Vu note that while ecological psychology is suitable and well adapted for the study of human factors, progress in other disciplines has been conducted under scientifically controlled and analysed conditions. Both approaches offer positive results.
Embodied cognition lies in the foundation that our minds and bodies must work together to achieve our potential ("commitment to the idea that the minds must be understood in the context of its relationship to a physical body that interacts with the world", pg. 19). Proctor and Vu assume that this approach indicates cognition cannot be explained as information-processing systems that are independent of physical function. Proctor and Vu believe that "explanations must consider how cognition is grounded in the real-world environment in which cognition operates" (pg. 19). Proctor and Vu describe themselves as researchers who study perceptual-motor performance and agree that models of cognition should be grounded in perception and action which has been done through the information-processing perspective since the 1950's.
Situated cognition, situated action and distributed cognition
As learning is understood to be a social act, there is emphasis on the importance of conducting the learning activity in a social context. It is an area of research developed by educational psychology, and has primarily been attributed to Vygotsky. In human factors, the approach is referred to as situated action. The perspective is drawn from the foundation of anthropological and sociological research. Proctor and Vu state that the aim is not just to build models of knowledge and action, but to explore the relationship between knowing and acting as it applies to context or circumstance. Distributed cognition is similar in concept to memetics in that cognition can be external to the individual and is formed in the relationship between individual and artefact.
These views are representative of social contexts and critics argue that information-processing cannot accommodate the social context, Proctor and Vu state. They observe that while the social context has been neglected, Anderson, Reder and Simon state that the cognitive approach is more commonly drawn from "social information processing" (pg. 20). Anderson, Reder and Simon state "[t]he cognitive methodology has delivered real educational applications in a way that the situated methodology has not and, we believe, fundamentally cannot" (pg. 20). Proctor and Vu indicate this statement applies to both educational technology and human factors, and consider the information-processing approach the origin for most of the concepts in human factors.
Qualitative descriptions versus quantitative models
Proctor and Vu note that although the domain has traditionally been oriented towards experimentation and explanatory process models in human factors, progress of computational cognitive models has matured to a new level where a more holistic approach has been adopted. Ethnographic research takes into consideration perceptions, beliefs and attitudes of an individual as she interacts in a natural setting, and is intended to provide comprehensive details of specific situations. Qualitative methods are useful for gathering data that quantitative models cannot grasp in some situational contexts.
Summary points
- Progress in human factors research is cumulative. From the earliest Annual Review article on engineering psychology to the present, human factors research has produced an ever-increasing understanding of human performance in applied settings.
- The human information-processing approach is responsible for much of the growth in human factors from its inception to the present.
- Many recent research directions in cognitive psychology and human factors stem from the information-processing perspective.
- Research on perceptual-motor performance is important to human factors historically and continues to contribute new insights.
- Much research in human factors developed around issues of information overload, how this overload degrades performance, and how the problems associated with overload can be alleviated.
- Issues associated with information overload and awareness are particularly important for introduction of new systems that provide large amount of dynamic information in real-time, such as Next Generation Airspace Transportation System and the networked battlefield.
- Miniaturisation and mobilisation of computers have made their presence ubiquitous. Realisation of the potential power of computing devices in various factors depends on human factors research.
- Many criticisms of the human information-processing approach fail to acknowledge that it allows integration across (a) the most basic biological levels to conscious awareness; (b) perception, cognition, and action; (c) interactions among persons; (d) interactions among persons and machines; and (e) task and work environments in which people perform.
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