Abstract

Understanding the cognitive processes of the human mind is necessary to further learn about design thinking processes. Cognitive studies are also significant in the research about design studio. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of designers intelligence quotient (IQ) on their designs. The statistical population in this study consisted of all Deylaman Institute of Higher Education architecture graduate students enrolled in 2011. Sixty of these students were selected via simple random sampling based on the finite population sample size calculation formula. The students’ IQ was measured using Raven’s Progressive Matrices. The students’ scores in Architecture Design Studio (ADS) courses from first grade (ADS-1) to fifth grade (ADS-5) and the mean scores of the design courses were used in determining the students’ design ability. Inferential statistics, as well as correlation analysis and mean comparison test for independent samples with SPSS, were also employed to analyze the research data. Results indicated that the students’ IQ, ADS-1 to ADS-4 scores, and the mean scores of the students’ design courses were not significantly correlated. By contrast, the students’ IQ and ADS-5 scores were significantly correlated. As the complexity of the design problem and designers’ experience increased, the effect of IQ on design seemingly intensified.

Abstract

The Virtual Sky project attempts to investigate the applicability of three-dimensional stereoscopic display for AirTraffic Control. This investigation is quite complex in that it requires several disciplines to be studied in parallel. For instance, we decided to use a multidisciplinary approach, which is made of three related components: “Visualization”,“Interaction” and “Human Factors”. This paper describes the framework of the investigation and provides the analysis’details for each component involved. Moreover, we present some preliminary results involving Air Traffic Controllersand entailing their training with a special Interaction device.

Abstract

The number of systems in commercially available vehicles that assist or automate driving tasks is rapidly increasing. At least for the next decade, using such systems remains up to the discretion of the user. In this paper, different reasons why drivers may disengage the autopilot are investigated. This was done through a simulator study in which the system could drive fully automated, but where participants could also disengage the system. Qualitative data were collected about why participants disengaged the autopilot. The analysis of the data revealed six themes covering the reasons why participants disabled the autopilot: The speed maintained by the autopilot, the behavior of the autopilot in relation to overtaking other vehicles, onset of boredom, onset of sleepiness, lack of trust in the autopilot, and enjoyment of manual driving. On the basis of the results, design opportunities are proposed to counteract the tendency to not use automated driving systems.

Abstract

Co-operative driving with speed adaptation functionality has great potential to improve traffic-throughput, traffic-safety, and environmental-impact on heavily used traffic-infrastructures. A driving-simulator study was performed to investigate the driver behaviour with respect to such driver-support systems (Zero-, Advisory-, Intervention-, and Controlling). This paper describes the results of one specific scenario, a cut-in scenario. The results show a small reaction time, which was smaller than the response-time required for stabilizing the manoeuvre. Subjective measures show that the experienced-effort for the Controlling system was the smallest, that the satisfaction for the Controlling system was the highest and that the usefulness of all systems was positive.

Abstract

Space agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the European Space Agency, the China National Space Administration, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Indian Space Research Organization, although differing in their local political agendas, have a common interest in promoting all applied sciences that may facilitate man’s adaptation to life beyond the earth. One of man’s most important adaptations has been the evolutionary development of sleep cycles in response to the 24 hour rotation of the earth. Less well understood has been man’s biological response to gravity. Before humans ventured into space, many questioned whether sleep was possible at all in microgravity environments. It is now known that, in fact, space travelers can sleep once they leave the pull of the earth’s gravity, but that the sleep they do get is not completely refreshing and that the associated sleep disturbances can be elaborate and variable. According to astronauts’ subjective reports, the duration of sleep is shorter than that on earth and there is an increased incidence of disturbed sleep. Objective sleep recordings carried out during various missions including the Skylab missions, space shuttle missions, and Mir missions all support the conclusion that, compared to sleep on earth, the duration in human sleep in space is shorter, averaging about six hours. In the new frontier of space exploration, one of the great practical problems to be solved relates to how man can preserve “normal” sleep in a very abnormal environment. The challenge of managing fatigue and sleep loss during space mission has critical importance for the mental efficiency and safety of the crew and ultimately for the success of the mission itself. Numerous "earthly" examples now show that crew fatigue on ships, trucks, and long-haul jetliners can lead to inadequate performance and sometimes fatal consequences, a reality which has caused many space agencies to take the issue of sleep seriously.

Abstract

Understanding how humans control a vehicle (cars, aircraft, bicycles, etc.) enables engineers to design faster, safer, more comfortable, more energy efficient, more versatile, and thus better vehicles. In a typical control task, the Human Controller (HC) gives control inputs to a vehicle such that it follows a particular reference path (e.g., the road) accurately. The HC is simultaneously required to attenuate the effect of disturbances (e.g., turbulence) perturbing the intended path of the vehicle. To do so, the HC can use a control organization that resembles a closed-loop feedback controller, a feedforward controller, or a combination of both. Previous research has shown that a purely closed-loop feedback control organization is observed only in specific control tasks, that do not resemble realistic control tasks, in which the information presented to the human is very limited. In realistic tasks, a feedforward control strategy is to be expected; yet, almost all previously available HC models describe the human as a pure feedback controller lacking the important feedforward response. Therefore, the goal of the research described in this thesis was to obtain a fundamental understanding of feedforward in human manual control."br/"First, a novel system identification method was developed, which was necessary to identify human control dynamics in control tasks involving realistic reference signals. Second, the novel identification method was used to investigate three important aspects of feedforward through human-in-the-loop experiments which resulted in a control-theoretical model of feedforward in manual control. The central element of the feedforward model is the inverse of the vehicle dynamics, equal to the theoretically ideal feedforward dynamics. However, it was also found that the HC is not able to apply a feedforward response with these ideal dynamics, and that limitations in the perception, cognition, and action loop need to be modeled by additional model elements: a gain, a time delay, and a low-pass filter."br/"Overall, the thesis demonstrated that feedforward is indeed an essential part of human manual control behavior and should be accounted for in many human-machine applications.

Abstract

The rapid advance of technologies is revolutionizing the way people work and transforming society into a digital world. In the shipping domain, many innovative technical systems have been designed and developed in the past decades, aiming to enable the maritime users to achieve the goal of safety, efficiency and effectiveness. The introduction of advanced technologies into workplaces that are intended to aid humans have also created unprecedented challenges. As their workplaces are inundated with new artefacts that cause confusion and information overloading, human users frequently find themselves in a supporting role to serve technology, being responsible for automation issues and blamed for “human errors” that sometimes result in tragic results. Today’s work in shipping is generally getting more distributed, complex and demanding. These challenges are closely associated with the design and use of technologies. Human-technology interactions in the context of sociotechnical systems has become an important research topic. It explores the relation between humans and machines to illustrate how interface design could address the human limitations, shape social interactions and provide ecological implications. This thesis considers the context of the shipping domain to investigate the impact of innovative technology, design issues and opportunities in various projects that attempt to increase safety or/and efficiency. The exploration and discourse in these applied projects are positioned in sociotechnical systems which include human, technology and organisational constituents. The thesis aims to achieve a deeper understanding of human-technology interactions from psychological, sociological and ecological perspectives, reflecting the ways in which technology interacts with humans. It aims to form a pluralistic epistemology to provide design implications and enlighten knowledge and organisational management within sociotechnical systems. The results have identified many issues related to situation awareness, attention and automation bias. It suggests the importance of adapting interfaces to the human limitations and accommodating the context change to support decision making. Perspectives of Activity Theory, distributed cognition and situated learning have high reference value in human-computer interaction research, providing insightful understanding about the nature of knowledge and interaction design, particularly how tool mediation could facilitate social interaction. In addition, technology-centric design that only concerns “user-interface” interaction is identified having significant limitations in complex systems. “Human errors” and organisational failures should be perceived via a holistic thinking. The results have presented the importance of adopting pluralistic approaches to understand the sociological factors and the nature of the work that is undergoing transitions along the shipping industry’s ecology. Overall, the thesis has identified the need to go beyond the pure cognitivist approach to better understand the complexity of human-computer interaction and human factors research, forming a deepened understanding towards an emerging interdisciplinary language of sociotechnical systems. To truly contribute to safety, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability, it is critical to develop a pluralistic epistemology and a comprehensive human-centric vision regarding design and technological innovation in the digital revolution.

Abstract

The rapid advance of technologies is revolutionizing the way people work and transforming society into a digital world. In the shipping domain, many innovative technical systems have been designed and developed in the past decades, aiming to enable the maritime users to achieve the goal of safety, efficiency and effectiveness. The introduction of advanced technologies into workplaces that are intended to aid humans have also created unprecedented challenges. As their workplaces are inundated with new artefacts that cause confusion and information overloading, human users frequently find themselves in a supporting role to serve technology, being responsible for automation issues and blamed for “human errors” that sometimes result in tragic results. Today’s work in shipping is generally getting more distributed, complex and demanding. These challenges are closely associated with the design and use of technologies. Human-technology interactions in the context of sociotechnical systems has become an important research topic. It explores the relation between humans and machines to illustrate how interface design could address the human limitations, shape social interactions and provide ecological implications. This thesis considers the context of the shipping domain to investigate the impact of innovative technology, design issues and opportunities in various projects that attempt to increase safety or/and efficiency. The exploration and discourse in these applied projects are positioned in sociotechnical systems which include human, technology and organisational constituents. The thesis aims to achieve a deeper understanding of human-technology interactions from psychological, sociological and ecological perspectives, reflecting the ways in which technology interacts with humans. It aims to form a pluralistic epistemology to provide design implications and enlighten knowledge and organisational management within sociotechnical systems. The results have identified many issues related to situation awareness, attention and automation bias. It suggests the importance of adapting interfaces to the human limitations and accommodating the context change to support decision making. Perspectives of Activity Theory, distributed cognition and situated learning have high reference value in human-computer interaction research, providing insightful understanding about the nature of knowledge and interaction design, particularly how tool mediation could facilitate social interaction. In addition, technology-centric design that only concerns “user-interface” interaction is identified having significant limitations in complex systems. “Human errors” and organisational failures should be perceived via a holistic thinking. The results have presented the importance of adopting pluralistic approaches to understand the sociological factors and the nature of the work that is undergoing transitions along the shipping industry’s ecology. Overall, the thesis has identified the need to go beyond the pure cognitivist approach to better understand the complexity of human-computer interaction and human factors research, forming a deepened understanding towards an emerging interdisciplinary language of sociotechnical systems. To truly contribute to safety, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability, it is critical to develop a pluralistic epistemology and a comprehensive human-centric vision regarding design and technological innovation in the digital revolution.

Abstract

utomated and semi-automated maneuvering will have to be monitored by the driver. To fulfil this task, the driver needs to have adequate risk awareness, which should represent the actual risk of the maneuver within the traffic situation. This work aims at deriving a model of driver’s risk awareness from physiological measurements and traffic context, which were acquired from simulator experiments. Given these prerequisites, a Bayesian Network may be postulated and trained with the data to estimate the risk awareness as internal driver’s state. The results of our study show the general feasibility of our approach. Future assistance systems may take this information and adapt to the user’s risk awareness accordingly.

Abstract

Connected Cruise Control (CCC) is a new approach to driver assistance that avoids some of the problems associated with autonomous driver assistance by advising optimal driver behaviour via a human-machine interface. Yet the characteristics of this advice can have a negative impact on driver distraction and additional task demand. While the system is still under development, an evaluation of system effects is needed to identify potential safety issues at an early stage in the design process. For this reason an introduction to CCC is provided, followed by a discussion of how advice attributes can generate distraction and add task demand. Finally, two human factors constructs are provided that can indicate the effects of systems characteristics on driver performance.