Quantitative effects of overlay clutter and information access effort: Examining the scan-clutter trade-off in displays with geospatial maps.

Overlaying images from multiple geospatial databases increases clutter and imposes attentional costs by disrupting focusing attention on each database and dividing attention when comparing databases. Costs of overlay clutter may offset the benefits of reduced scanning between two images displayed separately. In two experiments, we examine these attention issues using computational metrics to quantify clutter.

The relationship of trust and dependence.

The concepts of automation trust and dependence have often been viewed as closely related and on occasion, have been conflated in the research community. Yet, trust is a cognitive attitude and dependence is a behavioural measure, so it is unsurprising that different factors can affect the two. Here, we review the literature on the correlation between trust and dependence.

Beyond the Wizard of Oz: Negative Effects of Imperfect Machine Learning to Examine the Impact of Reliability of Augmented Reality Cues on Visual Search Performance.

Despite knowing exactly what an object looks like, searching for it in a person's visual field is a time-consuming and error-prone experience. In Augmented Reality systems, new algorithms are proposed to speed up search time and reduce human errors. However, these algorithms might not always provide 100% accurate visual cues, which might affect users' perceived reliability of the algorithm and, thus, search performance.

Supporting detection of hostile intentions: automated assistance in a dynamic decision-making context.

In a dynamic decision-making task simulating basic ship movements, participants attempted, through a series of actions, to elicit and identify which one of six other ships was exhibiting either of two hostile behaviors. A high-performing, although imperfect, automated attention aid was introduced. It visually highlighted the ship categorized by an algorithm as the most likely to be hostile.

Information Access Effort: The Role of Head Movements for Information Presented at Increasing Eccentricity on Flat Panel and Head-Mounted Displays.

Objective: This experiment examined performance costs when processing two sources of information positioned at increasing distances using a flat panel display and an augmented reality head-mounted display (AR-HMD).

Background: The AR-HMD enables positioning virtual information at various distances in space. However, the proximity compatibility principle suggests that closer separation when two sources of information require mental integration assists performance, whereas increased separation between two sources hurts integration performance more than when a single source requires focused attention.

Corrigendum: Human mental workload: A survey and a novel inclusive definition.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.

How history trails and set size influence detection of hostile intentions.

Previous research suggests people struggle to detect a series of movements that might imply hostile intentions of a vessel, yet this ability is crucial in many real world Naval scenarios. To investigate possible mechanisms for improving performance, participants engaged in a simple, simulated ship movement task. One of two hostile behaviors were present in one of the vessels: Shadowing-mirroring the participant's vessel's movements; and Hunting-closing in on the participant's vessel.

Rendezvous Under Temporal Uncertainty.

Objective: Three experiments sought to understand performance limitations in controlling a ship attempting to meet another moving ship that approached from various trajectories. The influence of uncertainty, resulting from occasional unpredictable delays in one's own movement, was examined.

Background: Cognitive elements of rendezvous have been little studied.

Mitigating the Costs of Spatial Transformations With a Situation Awareness Augmented Reality Display: Assistance for the Joint Terminal Attack Controller 3-17.

Objective: Evaluate and model the advantage of a situation awareness (SA) supported by an augmented reality (AR) display for the ground-based joint terminal attack Controller (JTAC), in judging and describing the spatial relations between objects in a hostile zone.

Background: The accurate world-referenced description of relative locations of surface objects, when viewed from an oblique slant angle (aircraft, observation post) is hindered by (1) the compression of the visual scene, amplified at a lower slang angle, (2) the need for mental rotation, when viewed from a non-northerly orientation.

Approach: Participants viewed a virtual reality (VR)-simulated four-object scene from either of two slant angles, at each of four compass orientations, either unaided, or aided by an AR head-mounted display (AR-HMD), depicting the scene from a top-down (avoiding compression) and north-up (avoiding mental rotation) perspective.

Detection of Hostile Intent by Spatial Movements.

Objective: The ability of people to infer intentions from movement of other vessels was investigated. Across three levels of variability in movements in the path of computer-controlled ships, participants attempted to determine which entity was hostile.

Background: Detection of hostile intentions through spatial movements of vessels is important in an array of real-world scenarios.

Transitions Between Low and High Levels of Mental Workload can Improve Multitasking Performance.

Complex and dynamic environments including military operations, healthcare, aviation, and driving require operators to transition seamlessly between levels of mental workload. However, little is known about how the rate of an increase in workload impacts multitasking performance, especially in the context of real-world tasks. We evaluated both gradual and sudden workload increases in the dynamic multitasking environment of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) command and control testbed and compared them to constant workload.

Absence of DOA Effect but No Proper Test of the Lumberjack Effect: A Reply to Jamieson and Skraaning (2019).

Objective: The aim was to evaluate the relevance of the critique offered by Jamieson and Skraaning (2019) regarding the applicability of the lumberjack effect of human-automation interaction to complex real-world settings.

Background: The lumberjack effect, based upon a meta-analysis, identifies the consequences of a higher degree of automation-to improve performance and reduce workload-when automation functions as intended, but to degrade performance more, as mediated by a loss of situation awareness (SA) when automation fails. Jamieson and Skraaning provide data from a process control scenario that they assert contradicts the effect.

Modeling Task Scheduling Decisions of Emergency Department Physicians.

Objective: This study evaluated task-scheduling decisions in the context of emergency departments by comparing patterns of emergency physicians' task-scheduling models across levels of experience.

Background: Task attributes (priority, difficulty, salience, and engagement) influence task-scheduling decisions. However, it is unclear how attributes interact to affect decisions, especially in complex contexts.

Nautical Collision Avoidance : The Cognitive Challenges of Balancing Safety, Efficiency, and Procedures.

Objective: Experimentally investigate maneuver decision preferences in navigating ships to avoid a collision. How is safety (collision avoidance) balanced against efficiency (deviation from path and delay) and rules of the road under conditions of both trajectory certainty and uncertainty.

Background: Human decision error is a prominent factor in nautical collisions, but the multiple factors of geometry of collisions and role of uncertainty have been little studied in empirical human factors literature.

Anchoring and Adjustment in Uncertain Spatial Trajectory Prediction.

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the impact of prior information on spatial prediction and understanding of variability.

Background: In uncertain spatial prediction tasks, such as hurricane forecasting or planning search-and-rescue operations, decision makers must consider the most likely case and the distribution of possible outcomes. Base performance on these tasks is varied (and in the case of understanding the distribution, often poor).

Effect of Visualization Training on Uncertain Spatial Trajectory Predictions.

Objective: The goal of this study was to explore the ways in which visualizations influence the prediction of uncertain spatial trajectories (e.g., the unknown path of a downed aircraft or future path of a hurricane) and participant overconfidence in such prediction.

Implementing Lumberjacks and Black Swans Into Model-Based Tools to Support Human-Automation Interaction.

Objective: The objectives were to (a) implement theoretical perspectives regarding human-automation interaction (HAI) into model-based tools to assist designers in developing systems that support effective performance and (b) conduct validations to assess the ability of the models to predict operator performance.

Background: Two key concepts in HAI, the lumberjack analogy and black swan events, have been studied extensively. The lumberjack analogy describes the effects of imperfect automation on operator performance.

Benefits of Imperfect Conflict Resolution Advisory Aids for Future Air Traffic Control.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the human-automation interaction issues and the interacting factors in the context of conflict detection and resolution advisory (CRA) systems.

Background: The issues of imperfect automation in air traffic control (ATC) have been well documented in previous studies, particularly in conflict-alerting systems. The extent to which the prior findings can be applied to an integrated conflict detection and resolution system in future ATC remains unknown.

Overconfidence in Projecting Uncertain Spatial Trajectories.

Objective: The aim of this study was to understand factors that influence the prediction of uncertain spatial trajectories (e.g., the future path of a hurricane or ship) and the role of human overconfidence in such prediction.

Time Sharing Between Robotics and Process Control: Validating a Model of Attention Switching.

Objective: The aim of this study was to validate the strategic task overload management (STOM) model that predicts task switching when concurrence is impossible.

Background: The STOM model predicts that in overload, tasks will be switched to, to the extent that they are attractive on task attributes of high priority, interest, and salience and low difficulty. But more-difficult tasks are less likely to be switched away from once they are being performed.

Effects of Information Access Cost and Accountability on Medical Residents' Information Retrieval Strategy and Performance During Prehandover Preparation: Evidence From Interview and Simulation Study.

Objective: We aimed to examine the effects of information access cost and accountability on medical residents' information retrieval strategy and performance during prehandover preparation.

Background: Prior studies observing doctors' prehandover practices witnessed the use of memory-intensive strategies when retrieving patient information. These strategies impose potential threats to patient safety as human memory is prone to errors.

Complacency and Automation Bias in the Use of Imperfect Automation.

Objective: We examine the effects of two different kinds of decision-aiding automation errors on human-automation interaction (HAI), occurring at the first failure following repeated exposure to correctly functioning automation. The two errors are incorrect advice, triggering the automation bias, and missing advice, reflecting complacency.

Background: Contrasts between analogous automation errors in alerting systems, rather than decision aiding, have revealed that alerting false alarms are more problematic to HAI than alerting misses are.

The Impact of Sleep Disruption on Complex Cognitive Tasks: A Meta-Analysis.

Objective: We aimed to build upon the state of knowledge about the impacts of sleep disruption into the domain of complex cognitive task performance for three types of sleep disruption: total sleep deprivation, sleep restriction, and circadian cycle.

Background: Sleep disruption affects human performance by increasing the likelihood of errors or the time it takes to complete tasks, such as the Psychomotor Vigilance Task. It is not clear whether complex tasks are affected in the same way.

Using Modeling and Simulation to Predict Operator Performance and Automation-Induced Complacency With Robotic Automation: A Case Study and Empirical Validation.

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop and validate a computational model of the automation complacency effect, as operators work on a robotic arm task, supported by three different degrees of automation.

Background: Some computational models of complacency in human-automation interaction exist, but those are formed and validated within the context of fairly simplified monitoring failures. This research extends model validation to a much more complex task, so that system designers can establish, without need for human-in-the-loop (HITL) experimentation, merits and shortcomings of different automation degrees.

Predictive displays for a process-control schematic interface.

Objective: Our objective was to examine the extent to which increasing precision of predictive (rate of change) information in process control will improve performance on a simulated process-control task.

Background: Predictive displays have been found to be useful in process control (as well as aviation and maritime industries). However, authors of prior research have not examined the extent to which predictive value is increased by increasing predictor resolution, nor has such research tied potential improvements to changes in process control strategy.