State of Science: ergonomics and global issues.

In his 1993 IEA keynote address, Neville Moray urged the ergonomics discipline to face up to the global problems facing humanity and consider how ergonomics might help find some of the solutions. In this State of Science article we critically evaluate what the ergonomics discipline has achieved in the last two and a half decades to help create a secure future for humanity. Moray's challenges for ergonomics included deriving a value structure that moves us beyond a Westernised view of worker-organisation-technology fit, taking a multidisciplinary approach which engages with other social and biological sciences, considering the gross cross-cultural factors that determine how different societies function, paying more attention to mindful consumption, and embracing the complexity of our interconnected world.

Paternity testing under the cloak of recreational genetics.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) internet companies are selling widely advertised and highly popular genetic ancestry tests to the broad public. These tests are often classified as falling within the scope of so-called 'recreational genetics', but little is known about the impact of using these services. In this study, a particular focus is whether minors (and under what conditions) should be able to participate in the use of these DTC tests.

Quantitative modelling in cognitive ergonomics: predicting signals passed at danger.

This paper shows how to combine field observations, experimental data and mathematical modelling to produce quantitative explanations and predictions of complex events in human-machine interaction. As an example, we consider a major railway accident. In 1999, a commuter train passed a red signal near Ladbroke Grove, UK, into the path of an express.

The good, the bad, and the future: on the archaeology of ergonomics.

Objective: This article places the 50th anniversary edition of the Human Factors journal in a historical context.

Background: It is appropriate to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of Human Factors and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, but in so doing, we celebrate only the recent history of ergonomics.

Method: By digging into the history of ergonomics, we can better understand the evolution of method, practice, and concepts in the human factors discipline.

Analysing and modelling train driver performance.

Arguments for the importance of contextual factors in understanding human performance have been made extremely persuasively in the context of the process control industries. This paper puts these arguments into the context of the train driving task, drawing on an extensive analysis of driver performance with the Automatic Warning System (AWS). The paper summarises a number of constructs from applied psychological research thought to be important in understanding train driver performance.

Adaptive automation, trust, and self-confidence in fault management of time-critical tasks.

An experiment on adaptive automation is described. Reliability of automated fault diagnosis, mode of fault management (manual vs. automated), and fault dynamics affect variables including root mean square error, avoidance of accidents and false shutdowns, subjective trust in the system, and operator self-confidence.

Culture, politics and ergonomics.

The beginning of a new century is an appropriate moment to consider the role of ergonomics in relation to the problems facing society. To help solve these serious global problems, ergonomics needs to be open to new disciplines, particularly those in the social sciences. Also, it may be difficult to generalize research on human-centred sociotechnical design without taking into account national characteristics, economics and political constraints.

Trust in automation. Part II. Experimental studies of trust and human intervention in a process control simulation.

Two experiments are reported which examined operators' trust in and use of the automation in a simulated supervisory process control task. Tests of the integrated model of human trust in machines proposed by Muir (1994) showed that models of interpersonal trust capture some important aspects of the nature and dynamics of human-machine trust. Results showed that operators' subjective ratings of trust in the automation were based mainly upon their perception of its competence.

Trust, control strategies and allocation of function in human-machine systems.

As automated controllers supplant human intervention in controlling complex systems, the operators' role often changes from that of an active controller to that of a supervisory controller. Acting as supervisors, operators can choose between automatic and manual control. Improperly allocating function between automatic and manual control can have negative consequences for the performance of a system.

Designing for transportation safety in the light of perception, attention, and mental models.

Most recent research on error has concentrated on errors of planning, judgement, and action. This paper is concerned with errors in the acquisition of information which are caused by perceptual and attentional mechanisms. Failures to schedule attentional sampling of the environment will lead to accidents.

A lattice theory approach to the structure of mental models.

Lattice theory is proposed to provide a formalism for the knowledge base used as a mental model by the operator of a complex system. The ordering relation 'greater than or equal to' is interpreted as 'is caused by', and the lattice becomes a representation of the operator's causal hypotheses about the system. A given system can be thought of causally in different ways (purposes, mechanics, physical form, etc.

Fault management in process control: eye movements and action.

Operators controlled a simulated thermal hydraulic system based on Crossman's waterbath task. They were required to keep the system at set points for temperature, level and flow rates. The system was subjected to disturbances and to failures, which the operators were required to manage.

Attention, practice, and semantic targets.

Observers detected letters in streams of digits under conditions of divided or selective attention for a period of 10 hr. There were marked practice effects both on the detectability of targets and on the response criteria used by observers. The detectability of targets and the response criteria were both strongly dependent on events in the contralateral channel.