Differing forms of self-operating transportation are already among us and some have been in operation now for an extended period of time. From elevators and escalators to airport transit trams, we ...already use many fully automatic systems. Now such technologies are very publicly and prominently penetrating into the on-road environment of everyday personal vehicle usage. The present article raises and addresses a number of the specific and more general human factors/ergonomic issues associated with such an evolutionary step. One particular concern is that of identified responsibility when such systems fail to perform flawlessly. The ways in which this (r)evolution will impact the social and cultural fabric of affected societies is also considered. Further observations as to the vector of the future characteristics of these vehicular forms and how they and other autonomous systems will affect our world are examined. The very future of the human experience depends upon the ways in which such systems are designed, enacted and integrated into everyday life and these are fundamentally ergonomic endeavours.Practitioner's Summary: The prominence of practitioners working on advanced human-machine systems will increase with public concerns surrounding self-driving vehicles. Driverless cars are not only a technological step but they will also exert widespread effects throughout society. Practitioners should prepare for these broad socio-technical challenges in an evolving, autonomous world.
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Automated vehicles (AVs) already navigate US highways and those of many other nations around the world. Current questions about AVs do not now revolve around whether such technologies should or ...should not be implemented; they are already with us. Rather, such questions are more and more focused on how such technologies will impact evolving transportation systems, our social world, and the individuals who live within it and whether such systems ought to be fully automated or remain under some form of direct human control. More importantly, how will mobility itself change as these independent operational vehicles first share and then dominate our roadways? How will the public be kept apprised of their evolving capacities, and what will be the impact of science and the communication of scientific advances across the varying forms of social media on these developments? We look here to address these issues and to provide some suggestions for the problems that are currently emerging.
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Human mental workload is arguably the most invoked multidimensional construct in Human Factors and Ergonomics, getting momentum also in Neuroscience and Neuroergonomics. Uncertainties exist in its ...characterization, motivating the design and development of computational models, thus recently and actively receiving support from the discipline of Computer Science. However, its role in human performance prediction is assured. This work is aimed at providing a synthesis of the current state of the art in human mental workload assessment through considerations, definitions, measurement techniques as well as applications, Findings suggest that, despite an increasing number of associated research works, a single, reliable and generally applicable framework for mental workload research does not yet appear fully established. One reason for this gap is the existence of a wide swath of operational definitions, built upon different theoretical assumptions which are rarely examined collectively. A second reason is that the three main classes of measures, which are self-report, task performance, and physiological indices, have been used in isolation or in pairs, but more rarely in conjunction all together. Multiple definitions complement each another and we propose a novel inclusive definition of mental workload to support the next generation of empirical-based research. Similarly, by comprehensively employing physiological, task-performance, and self-report measures, more robust assessments of mental workload can be achieved.
To what extent are identified psychological processes created in laboratories? The present work addresses this issue with reference to one particular realm of behavior: vigilance. Specifically, I ...argue that the classic vigilance decrement function can be viewed more realistically and advantageously as an "invigilant" increment function. Rather than characterizing the transient decrease in detection capability that is evident on exposure to enforced monitoring as a diminishment in capacity, it may be more usefully seen as an appropriate scaling by the designated observer to adapt to the nonoptimal circumstances that he or she is forced to endure. This proposition emphasizes the dynamic response characteristics of the observer and locates the origin of the phenomenon and the onus for practical improvements in the design of operational displays with designers rather than apportioning blame for performance decrements to the operator. This perspective reinforces the recognition of a crucial presence of the necessary but often unrecognized external arbiter in the vigilance paradigm and the extrinsically imposed imperative to sustain attention. Explicit recognition of this fact also helps explain the stress involved with extended vigils. In identifying the traditional vigilance decrement as a form of iatrogenic disease, I argue that modern design of work systems should alleviate the need for either the acute or the chronic expressions of such enforced human monitoring activity. It is possible that the case of vigilance is itself representative of a modern propensity to create new psychological phenomena in the face of human exposure to modern, evolving technical environments. (Contains 2 figures.)
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Our present era is witnessing the genesis of a sea-change in the way that advanced technologies operate. Amongst this burgeoning wave of untrammelled automation there is now beginning to arise a ...cadre of ever-more independent, autonomous systems. The degree of interaction between these latter systems with any form of human controller is becoming progressively more diminished and remote; and this perhaps necessarily so. Here, I advocate for human-centred and human favouring constraints to be designed, programmed, promulgated and imposed upon these nascent forms of independent entity. I am not sanguine about the collective response of modern society to this call. Nevertheless, the warning must be voiced and the issue debated, especially among those who most look to mediate between people and technology.
Practitioner Summary: Practitioners are witnessing the penetration of progressively more independent technical orthotics into virtually all systems' operations. This work enjoins them to advocate for sentient, rational and mindful human-centred approaches towards such innovations. Practitioners need to place user-centred concerns above either the technical or the financial imperatives which motivate this line of progress.
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Objective
To examine and evaluate ways in which an understanding of the quintessential element of Human Factors/Ergonomics can address the spectrum of existential threats that confront contemporary ...civilization.
Background
HF/E is dedicated to improving quality of life. Paradoxically, many processes which sustain contemporary civilization act to reduce that overall quality. Some technological developments themselves now even present existential threats to the fragile skein of civilization itself. Many disciplines address these diverse threats, and each may be advised and facilitated by HF/E knowledge and methods. It is a moral imperative of our science to contribute what we can to proposed resolutions.
Method
A primary conduit, by the established strengths of HF/E can contribute to potential solutions is identified. The present work advocates for specific, practical interventions using a direct-perception mediated, panopticon principle, that derives from the corpus of our science.
Result
Limitations upon a general, social understanding of imminent global concerns, which are largely ignorable when not actually present, are brought to immediate consciousness via an HF/E principle emphasizing the direct-perception of threat. It is argued that this, and allied HF/E insights can generate practical steps toward problem resolution at both macroscopic and localized levels of implementation.
Applications
The primary, practical application of the proposed panopticon principle is to use our science to save global civilization. It is postulated that this represents useful employment of the knowledge we have adduced and accumulated across our discipline’s existence.
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This work examines how we may be able to anticipate, respond to, and train for the occurrence of rare, uncertain, and unexpected events in human-machine systems operations. In particular, it uses a ...foundational matrix which describes the combinations of the state-of-the-world and the state-of-the-respondent, to formulate preferred response strategies, contingent upon what is knowable and actionable in each circumstance. It employs the dichotomy of System I and System II forms of cognitive response and augments these perspectives with a further form of decision-making, namely Systems III. The latter is predicated upon reactions to novel, unprecedented, and even 'unthinkable' events. The degree to which any human operator, the associated automation and/or the autonomy of a system, or each of these acting in concert, can best deal with these 'blue swan' events is explored. Potential forms of remediation, especially featuring training, are discussed, and evaluated in light of the skills needed to respond to even prohibitive degrees of situational uncertainty.
Practitioners summary: Practitioners are liable to witness a growing spectrum of unusual and, on occasion, even unprecedented events in the operation of systems for which they are responsible. They will be required to account for their response to these circumstances to a spectrum of involved constituencies to whom they answer. This work aids them in succeeding to bring clarity to such difficult and challenging processes.
Abbreviations: K: Known; Unk: Unknown; AI: Artificial Intelligence; ML: Machine Learning; CHARM: Cockpit Human-Automation Resource Management; SDT: signal detection theory; ASRS: Aviation Safety Reporting System.
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Objective
The objective of this meta-analysis is to explore the presently available, empirical findings on transfer of training from virtual (VR), augmented (AR), and mixed reality (MR) and determine ...whether such extended reality (XR)-based training is as effective as traditional training methods.
Background
MR, VR, and AR have already been used as training tools in a variety of domains. However, the question of whether or not these manipulations are effective for training has not been quantitatively and conclusively answered. Evidence shows that, while extended realities can often be time-saving and cost-saving training mechanisms, their efficacy as training tools has been debated.
Method
The current body of literature was examined and all qualifying articles pertaining to transfer of training from MR, VR, and AR were included in the meta-analysis. Effect sizes were calculated to determine the effects that XR-based factors, trainee-based factors, and task-based factors had on performance measures after XR-based training.
Results
Results showed that training in XR does not express a different outcome than training in a nonsimulated, control environment. It is equally effective at enhancing performance.
Conclusion
Across numerous studies in multiple fields, extended realities are as effective of a training mechanism as the commonly accepted methods. The value of XR then lies in providing training in circumstances, which exclude traditional methods, such as situations when danger or cost may make traditional training impossible.
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Our long accepted and historically-persistent human narrative almost exclusively places us at the motivational centre of events. The wellspring of this anthropocentric fable arises from the unitary ...and bounded nature of personal consciousness. Such immediate conscious experience frames the heroic vision we have told to, and subsequently sold to ourselves. But need this centrality necessarily be a given? The following work challenges this, oft unquestioned, foundational assumption, especially in light of developments in automated, autonomous, and artificially-intelligent systems. For, in these latter technologies, human contributions are becoming ever more peripheral and arguably unnecessary. The removal of the human operator from the inner loops of momentary control has progressed to now an ever more remote function as some form of supervisory monitor. The natural progression of that line of evolution is the eventual excision of humans from access to any form of control loop at all. This may even include system maintenance and then, prospectively, even initial design. The present argument features a 'unit of analysis' provocation which explores the proposition that socially, and even ergonomically, the human individual no longer occupies priority or any degree of pre-eminent centrality. Rather, we are witnessing a transitional phase of development in which socio-technical collectives are evolving as the principle sources of what, may well be profoundly unhuman motivation. These developing proclivities occupy our landscape of technological innovations that daily act to magnify, rather than diminish, such progressive inhumanities. Where this leaves a science focused on work as a human-centred enterprise serves to occupy the culminating consideration of the present discourse.
Understanding the changes in discretionary, as compared to obligatory, roles of human users and operators in systems is central to Ergonomic practice. Envisioning this path of potential progress, and then witnessing and impacting its actual realisation, permits practitioners to optimise their professional and personal strategies as they deal with this next critical step in the relationship between humans and technology.
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Objective:
The aim of this study was to distill and define those influences under which change in objective performance level and the linked cognitive workload reflections of subjective experience ...and physiological variation either associate, dissociate, or are insensitive, one to another.
Background:
Human factors/ergonomics frequently employs users’ self-reports of their own conscious experience, as well as their physiological reactivity, to augment the understanding of changing performance capacity. Under some circumstances, these latter workload responses are the only available assessment information to hand. How such perceptions and physiological responses match, fail to match, or are insensitive to the change in primary-task performance can prove critical to operational success. The reasons underlying these associations, dissociations, and insensitivities are central to the success of future effective human–machine interaction.
Method:
Using extant research on the relations between differing methods of workload assessment, factors influencing their association, dissociation, and insensitivity are identified.
Results:
Dissociations and insensitivities occur more frequently than extant explanatory theories imply. Methodological and conceptual reasons for these patterns of incongruity are identified and evaluated.
Application:
We often seek convergence of results in order to provide coherent explanations as bases for future prediction and practical design implementation. Identifying and understanding the causes as to why different reflections of workload diverge can help practitioners toward operational success.
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