Ergonomics/Human
Integrated Systems
(Project 02)
Objectives:
• To fit the job to the human need to understand
the human.
• Psychology students should understand human
behaviour.
• Important to understand social behaviour as this
can impact on performance and health – e.g.
motivation, attitudes etc...
• Important to understand cognition, perception,
information processing and memory.
• Underlies ability to do task – affected by social
issues.
Human Cognition
• Cognition is a term for the mechanisms we use to
perceive, think and remember.
• We perceive, process and respond.
• Theory Lab based, not in applied context.
• Tasks that are incompatible with our cognitive
functions can lead to:
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Poor performance
Stress
Errors – medical errors.
Disasters – 3 mile island.
Cognitive Factors
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Psychomotor Skills
Sensory and perceptual skills
Attention
Learning and memory
Language and communication
Problem solving and decision making
All relevant to task performance
Examples?
Cognitive Characteristics
• Each factor has characteristics
• A person must be able to physically reach
the controls of a machine
• Technology should not exceed our
cognitive limits.
• Understanding human cognition can inform
task design or ability to do task.
Exercise - Limits
• Think of physical limits that affect task
design?
• Think of psychological limits – how do they
affect tasks? Are they as clear?
Understanding Cognition
• Not enough to consider cognitive characteristics
of user
• Interaction between humans and devices
requires two-way exchange of information.
• Need model of task or device, ie outputs and
inputs - Context
• Need model of the user’s cognitive processes
and behaviour - Competence
• Can then understand what can and cannot be
expected of users - Performance
Considering Human Performance
• Competence (Users Cognitive Characteristics):
• What the person can do
• What the mind can compute
• Performance:
• What the person actually does
• What mind computes in a given context
• Context (The workplace, environment etc.):
• How contextual factors affect information processing,
response selection etc.
Example
• User may have mental capacity or competence to use a
mobile phone and drive a car.
• Performance of phone use and driving (the output of
cognition) can be measured.
• Performance of either task affected by contextual factors.
• Context includes weather, time, mood?
• Or phone conversation may be more complicated.
• Or the task more complicated.
• In these situations the task may exceed the mental
capacities.