Human Factors Origins
P.A. Hancock
Presentation for the Class of 2007
Human Factors II EXP 6257
January 11th, 2007
Department of Psychology s Institute for Simulation and Training
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL 32826
Your task for this week is to generate two
PowerPoint slides. The first should be on an
historical figure in HF/E (not one on those
already presented) and the second should be on a
contemporary, active HF/E scientist.
You must coordinate this as a GROUP since there
should be no overlap or repetitions across the
group. This will require cooperation.
The form each slide should be very much as
presented here. A good portrait of the individual
and some interesting (and hopefully innovative)
information about them and their
career/contribution.
Jastrzebowski was a multi-dimensional,
multi-talented individual, whom we know in
HF/E for coining the term ‘Ergonomics.’ This
was taken from the title of his 1857 treatise
(which is certainly worth reading and is
probably cited by many and read by few).
He was a scientist but also active in politics,
especially in his younger years when he was
part of something know as the student
revolution. The actual treatise was
reproduced by the Polish Ergonomics
Society for the combined IEA and HFES 2000
Meeting in San Diego, California.
Its is certainly before its time and contains
observations on working conditions which
remain relevant today.
Wojieich Jastrzebowski
Claude Shannon (a native of Michigan) worked
for the telecommunications industry and his
primary contribution to knowledge is through
his theory of information. Fundamentally a
mathematical treatise about signals and
noise, Shannon crucial insights (derived from
interaction with earlier luminaries such as
Hartley and Nyquist) provided the foundation
for the information age. It is a supportable
assertion that the 1949 Book (published in
association with Warren Weaver) was the most
important text of the 20th Century.
Claude Shannon
Shannon, C., & Weaver, W. (1949). The
mathematical theory of communication.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
The origins of the information-processing
revolution in psychology were derived from
Shannon’s original insights. No IP, then no
fruitful interchange between psychologists
and engineers and no Human Factors!
Warren Weaver
During WW II a question was asked
about whom the enemy would be most
happy to destroy on the other side of
the conflict. For the Germans
Roosevelt came first and Vannevar
Bush came second! He was certainly a
far-sighted individual to whom we owe
the National Science Foundation and
other initiatives which set up the US as
the premier post WW II power. His
most famous popular work is entitled
‘As we may think.’ (You have this in
your packet and should certainly read
it – always remembering the date it was
written – look especially at the
memex).
Bush saw the future of human-machine
systems and helped to begin to realize
that vision. He was a highly placed and
powerful scientist/advisor. Our country
could certainly do with his like today!
Vannevar Bush
Norbert Wiener is one of the more
interesting and colorful characters
associated with progress in
understanding human processing
capacities. Originally a mathematician,
Wiener was a prodigy getting his Ph.D
from Harvard at the age of 18! It is
largely due to him that MIT is the
Institution that it is today. His work on
Cybernetics (a term he essentially
coined) is central to our understanding
of human-machine systems.
His later, popular books: ‘The Human
Use of Human Beings’ and ‘God and
Golem Inc” are very readable and are
recommended. His ethnic background
finds him at the very heart of
understanding about machines and
automata. Certainly a figure to
remember and to quote from if
relevant.
Norbert Wiener
J.C.R. Licklider
Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (March 11, 1915 – June 26,
1990), known simply as J.C.R. or "Lick" is one of
the most important figures in computer
science. After early work in psycho-acoustics,
he worked in information technology.
Licklider's contribution to the development of
the Internet consists of ideas, not inventions.
He foresaw the need for networked computers
with easy user interfaces. He foretold graphical
computing, point-and-click interfaces, digital
libraries, e-commerce, online banking, and
software that would exist on a network and
migrate where needed. Licklider was
instrumental in conceiving, funding and
managing research that led to modern personal
computers and the Internet. His seminal paper
Man-Computer Symbiosis foreshadowed
interactive computing, and he went on to fund
most notably the work of Douglas Engelbart.
He played a similar role in conceiving of and
funding early networking research, most
notably the ARPAnet. His 1968 paper on The
Computer as a Communication Device predicts
the use of computer networks to support
communities of common interest and
collaboration without regard to location.
Paul M. Fitts (of the famous Fitts’ Law) was one
of the founding fathers of the science of Human
Factors and applied experimental psychology.
His service during and following WW II
was focused on the issue of humans and systems
and he worked for what was then the Army Air
Force – it became the Air Force in 1947. He
made many contributions including the famous
Fitts and Jones paper on Pilot Error and the Socalled Fitts List for human-machine function
Allocation (of which we will learn more later).
Paul M. Fitts
After the War Fitts was at Universities such as
Ohio State and Michigan. He was the mentor to
many famous scientists, including Dick Pew and
Mike Posner (see picture attached). He was one
time President of the Human Factors and
Ergonomics Society as well as Division 21 of
APA. He died at a tragically young age [I believe
aged 53 on his birthday – you need to check
this]. He had been mowing the lawn prior to his
graduate students coming over. He lay down in
the couch and never got up. This is why I never
mow lawns!
The HFES Fitts Award is given for Mentorship.
P.A. Hancock meets with two of Paul Fitts ex-students. On the right is
Professor Richard (Dick) pew and on the left is Professor Michael (Mike)
Posner. The occasion was Posner’s delivery of the Arnold Small Lecture of
HFES at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics
Society, in San Francisco, CA, October, 2006.
Working memory is generally considered to
have limited capacity. The earliest
quantification of the capacity limit
associated with short-term memory was the
"magical number seven" introduced by
George Miller (1956). He noticed that the
memory span of young adults was around
seven elements, called chunks, regardless
whether the elements were digits, letters,
words, or other units.
George A. Miller
George Miller was the founder of Wordnet, a
linguistic knowledgebase that maps the way
the mind stores and uses language. He also
worked on a number of commercial
applications based on Wordnet, most
notably, Simpli. Simpli was an early
Internet search and marketing engine that
utilized Wordnet to "read" search queries
and disambiguate them. It was also used to
read webpages and derive representative
keywords so that advertising could be
presented. This is the underlying principle
behind Google's advertising technology-AdSense--which was derived directly from
Wordnet and Simpli.
Alphonse Chapanis
Alphonse Chapanis (1917-2002) was one of the
founders of ergonomics, or human factors, the
science of making design account for human
characteristics. He was active in improving
aviation safety around the time of World War
II. One of his major contributions was shape
coding, where he solved the problem of a
certain airplane's controls being confused with
each other, due partly to them being next to
each other. One manifestation of this
confusion involved controls for flaps and the
landing gear; the consequences of operating
the wrong one were severe. After Chapanis
proposed attaching a wheel to the landing gear
control and a triangle to the flaps, there were
no more instances of the landing gear being
raised while the plane was on the ground.
Chapanis also designed the layout of number
pads for telephones, a design still in use
today. He also co-authored the first textbook
in human factors. His autobiography is called
‘The Chapanis Chronicles’ and is well worth a
read.
1998
Alphonse Chapanis and Peter Hancock at the Chicago Human
Factors and Ergonomics Society Meeting just following the
Recording of the Chapanis Video, 1998.
Alan M.
Turing
Alan Mathison Turing, OBE (June 23, 1912 – June 7, 1954),
was an English mathematician and
cryptographer. Turing is considered to be the
father of modern computer science. He
provided an influential formalisation of the
concept of the algorithm and computation with
the Turing machine, formulating the "Turing"
version of the Church–Turing thesis, namely
that any practical computing model has either
the equivalent or a subset of the capabilities of
a Turing machine. With the Turing test, he
made a significant contribution to the debate
regarding artificial intelligence. He ]worked at
the National Physical Laboratory, creating one
of the first designs for a stored-program
computer, although it was never actually built.
In 1947 he moved to the University of
Manchester working largely on software, on the
Manchester Mark I then emerging as one of the
world's earliest true computers. During the
Second World War, Turing worked at Bletchley
Park, Britain's code-breaking centre, and was
head of Hut 8, the section responsible for
German naval cryptanalysis. He devised
numerous techniques for breaking ciphers,
including the bombe method, a machine that
could find settings for the Enigma machine.
Kenneth Craik
Kenneth Craik (1914-1945) was a
philosopher
and psychologist who studied philosophy
at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland,
and received his doctorate from
Cambridge University in 1940. He then
had a fellowship to St John's College,
Cambridge in 1941, and was appointed to
be the first director of the Medical
Research Council's Cambridge-based
Applied Psychology Unit in 1944. In 1943
he wrote The Nature of Explanation. In
this book he laid the foundation for the
concept of mental models, that the mind
forms models of reality and uses them to
predict similar future events. He was one
of the earliest practitioners of cognitive
science. He was tragically killed at the
young age of 31 in a bicycle accident, and
he was succeeded by Sir Frederic Bartlett
as Director of the Applied Psychology
Unit. His 1947-1948 papers are still
important reading.
Sir Frederic Bartlett was the scientist who
coined the term schema. He studied
memory at the height of behaviorism (BTW
Bartlett would have spelled it
‘behaviourism’). His memory work
examined the recall of meaningful material
rather than nonsense syllables, so he is an
early example of an early cognitive
scientist conducting research with realworld tasks.
You should find out how the ‘Isle of the
Ghosts’ relate to Bartlett.
He was Director of the Applied Psychology
Unit at Cambridge from 1945-1951. This
Institution has had much to do with the
growth and development of AE/HF and you
should look to find out more about its
history and contributions.
Sir Frederic Bartlett
Shown here with an aging Sir
Frederic Bartlett, Broadbent was at
The heart of the ‘Cognitive’
revolution. His classic text:
‘Perception and Communication’ was
one of the first applications of
information theory to a model of
selective attention. His later text,
‘Decision and Stress’ is a classic for
stress research as well as research on
human performance.
Sir Donald Broadbent
He was also one-time head of the
Applied Psychology Unit at Cambridge
and later moved to Oxford to set up his
own unit. He married Richard’ Gregory's
divorced wife as indeed Kahneman did
Michel Treisman’s. Fun and games in
early cognitive psychology. Poulton
never forgave Broadbent his success and
his marriage and he used noise and
vigilance to fuel the argument. It is one
of the most interesting exchanges in
the behavioral science.
Mackworth was the founder of modern
vigilance research, a term he took from
the neurologist, Sir Henry Head. His
original experimental research was
triggered by WW II concerns for radar
operators looking for submarines out
over the Bay of Biscay. His original
monograph on the topic, republished
in Sinako’s text, still represents the
best introduction to the area.
Norman Mackworth
Mackworth was the first to formally
identified the ‘vigilance decrement
function’ which remains pertinent to
all operations in automated and semiautomated systems today. His work on
stress effects was also pivotal. He
worked at the APU Cambridge for part
of his career, as did many other
influential scientists who have had a
fundamental impact on applied human
performance theory. Others include
Broadbent, Poulton, Baddeley,
Wilkinson, etc.
P.A. Hancock
and Colleagues
Peter Hancock is Provost Distinguished
Research Professor in the Department
of Psychology and at the Institute for
Simulation and Training at the
University of Central Florida. In his
previous appointment, he founded and
was the Director of the Human Factors
Research Laboratory at the University
of Minnesota. He is a Fellow and past
President of the Human Factors and
Ergonomics Society. Dr. Hancock’s work
has traditionally concerned the
energetic aspects of human
performance capacity with an especial
focus on issues of stress and cognitive
workload. He was the Principal
Investigator of a 5-year, $5M MultipleUniversity Research (MURI) initiative
for the U.S. Army focusing on these
issues. His theoretical work is also
concerned with the phenomenon of
time.
Joel S. Warm
Joel Warm is the greatest living authority on the issue of vigilance and
sustained attention. He has made significant contributions to this and other
areas of psychology for over five decades. Sustained attention (vigilance) in
terms of tests of theoretical models; studies of the psycho-physical, psychophysiological, and training determinants of performance efficiency and the
perceived mental workload of vigilance tasks; pattern discrimination,
particularly the perception of subjective contours; psychoacoustics with
emphasis on auditory adaptation and inter-sensory processes. He once had a
try-out for the NY Yankees and was also in the US Army and Navy following
the end of WW II. His great colleague Bill Dember recently passed away but
Joel continues to be active.
Mark Chignell
Dr. Chignell's interests lie in in the general
area of human factors approaches to
information technology. He is particularly
interested in the areas of dynamic
hypertext, mobile computing, and
customized information access. The general
approach adopted is to look for
opportunities to add intelligence or value
through appropriate (re-)design of the user
interface. In dynamic hypertext, for
instance, this involves adding a simple
point and click hypertext interface to the
search and query formulation task, along
with complementary algorithms for
calculating queries based on user
selections. For mobile computing, it
involves exploration of new forms of
interface for information access using a
small screen, or an auditory interface. For
customized information access it involves
application of user profiles to develop
customized information presentations for
individuals, or for groups of users. In the
context of digital libraries, this work is
concerned with developing effective nontraditional methods for accessing large
digital information collections, using
dynamic hypertext and customized
information retrieval in a variety of
desktop, handheld, and mobile computing
settings.
Raja Parasuraman
Raja Parasuraman has long-standing
research programs in two areas, human
factors and cognitive neuroscience. The
first concerns human performance in
human-machine systems, particularly
with respect to the influence of
automation and computer technology on
attention, memory, and vigilance. His
second area of research is the cognitive
neuroscience of attention, where he has
conducted studies using informationprocessing paradigms, event-related brain
potentials and functional brain imaging
(PET, fMRI), both in normal populations
and in relation to aging and Alzheimer’s
disease. He also has a research thrust in
the molecular genetics of cognition,
specifically attention and working
memory. Finally, he has recently
combined his interests in human factors
(ergonomics) and cognitive neuroscience
by developing the field of
neuroergonomics, which he defines as the
study of brain and behavior at work.
He has research interests in humanmachine interaction in complex
industrial systems, process control,
human factors of automation, mental
workload, human error, and the
human factors of design. He was
called as an expert witness in the
Ladbroke Grove and Southall railway
crash inquiries. Neville started his
career at Oxford where he was a
Graduate student at the time of the
‘cognitive’ revolution (a la Broadbent,
Treisman et al). His first appointment
was in Sheffield and since he has
been at Toronto, Sitrling, Illinois,
Valenciennes, Surrey, and recently
retired (with his third wife – the
widow of the famous Cambridge
historian Rhodes-James) to the south
of France. He is working on two
papers with Hancock and better be
working hard not painting and
enjoying glasses of wine.
Neville Moray
He is the Editor of a large text on
Classic Reading in HF/E.
John Flach
John Flach has one of the most
innovative and fecund minds in
the whole of HF/E and beyond.
His early students days at Ohio
State (with Rich Jagacinski)
taught him the value of
quantitative approaches to
problem solution. Added to this he
has been involved in the
‘ecological’ revolution based
generally on Gibson’s notions.
Also, he has worked extensively
with Jens Rasmussen who must
class as one of the most
influential HF/E thinker of the
20th Century. This combination
means that John generates unique
and novel ideas – an exceptionally
rare talent. We, collectively, will
be putting him up for Honorary
Fellow in HFES. He is presently
Head of the Psych Department at
Wright State University – fie on
him!
David Woods
Dave Woods (Purdue '79) is a Professor at Ohio
State University in the Institute for
Ergonomics and Past-President of the Human
Factors and Ergonomics Society. From his
initial work following the Three Mile Island
accident in nuclear power, to studies of
coordination breakdowns between people and
automation in aviation accidents, to his role
in today’s national debates about patient
safety, he has studied how human and team
cognition contributes to success and failure in
complex, high risk systems. He was on the
board of the National Patient Safety
Foundation from its founding until 2002 and
served as Associate Director of the Veterans
Health Administration’s Midwest Center for
Inquiry on Patient Safety (1999-2002). He is
author of Behind Human Error, received the
Jack A. Kraft Innovator Award from Human
Factors and Ergonomic Society for advancing
Cognitive Engineering and its application to
safer systems, and received a Laurels Award
from Aviation Week and Space Technology
(1995) on the human factors of highly
automated cockpits. He currently serves on a
National Academy of Engineering/ Institute of
Medicine Study Panel applying engineering to
improve health care systems and on a National
Research Council panel on research to define
the future of the national air transportation
system.
Robert ‘Bob’ Hoffman is a Senior
Research Scientist at the Institute
of Human and Machine Cognition in
Pensacola, Florida. He specializes in
the study of expertise and the
design of human-centered systems.
In particular, he has a wide
understanding of issues associated
with expert weather forecasting and
has made fundamental contributions
to an understanding of human
decision-making processes
Robert ‘Bob’ Hoffman
This book covers many physiological and
psychological aspects of work design, as
well as environmental considerations,
manual materials handling considerations,
etc. This book contains many figures and
illustrations to assist the reader in
ergonomic and work design principles.
The book may be a difficult read at times,
but it does provide a great deal of useful
information.
Etienne Grandjean
Jagacinski’s research interests include
perceptual-motor coordination, humanfactors, aging, decision making in
dynamic contexts, and human
interactions with the natural
environment.
Richard Jagacinski
Dr. Walter F. Grether died June
10, 1998 at age 86. With Dr. Paul
M. Fitts he founded the US Army
Air Force Psychology Branch at
Wright Field, near Dayton, in
August 1945. This later became
the Paul M. Fitts Human
Engineering Division. In 1949 he
succeeded Dr. Fitts as the second
Division Chief until 1956, when
he became Director of the
Behavioral Sciences Division.
Walter F. Grether
The word "ergonomics" was coined in
1949 by the British scientist K.F.H.
Murrell who put it together from the
Greek "ergon" (meaning "work") and
"nomos" (meaning "law"). To the left
are some of his original notes.
K.F.H. Murrell
Lee J.
Cronbach
During a career that spanned five decades,
including 16 years at Stanford as a Professor
of Education, Cronbach developed the most
frequently used measure of the reliability of
a psychological or educational test, known as
"Cronbach`s alpha." This formula measures
the reliability of a test when it is taken only
once. At the time of his death, he was
working on a paper commemorating the 50th
anniversary of the publication of the alpha
paper. The initial work on the alpha led to
his developing a theory of test reliability,
"Generalizability Theory," a comprehensive
statistical model for identifying sources of
measurement error. Cronbach also did
pathbreaking work on the interpretation of
test scores, including a seminal paper,
"Construct Validity in Psychological Tests."
He also was an early proponent of dissolving
the arbitrary divisions between correlational
and experimental psychology, a division that
to some extent persists today
Student Generated Slides on Past
and Current Contributors to HF/E
..
Harvey
Wichman
Harvey Wichman received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from
California State University, Long Beach and his Ph.D. in
experimental psychology from Claremont Graduate
University. He was a member of the founding faculties of
both Delta College in Michigan and California State
University in San Bernardino. He is a professor Emeritus at
Claremont McKenna College (CMC) and Claremont
Graduate University, and was the Director of CMC’s
Aerospace Psychology Laboratory. Trained in both
neuroscience and social psychology, he has conducted
research on the effects of working and living in severe
environments. As a Sloan Foundation Fellow he worked for
a year on the design of the International Space Station with
Rockwell International. He is the author of the book Human
Factors in the Design of Spacecraft, and has published
articles in journals such as the Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, Space Life Sciences, Human Factors, and
Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine. In addition to
work with NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Professor Wichman’s space research has involved designing
passenger compartments for civilian space flight on reuseable rockets for both orbital and sub-orbital flights. In
the field of aviation, Professor Wichman has studied
passenger misbehavior aboard airliners. He holds
commercial pilot multi-engine, flight instructor and
instrument flight instructor ratings.
Robert
Helmreich
Robert Helmreich is currently a professor of
psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, where
he has been since 1966. He is the principal investigator
of the University of Texas Human Factors Research
Project. This group studies individual and team
performance, human error, and the influence of
culture on behavior in aviation and medicine.
Helmreich received all his degrees at Yale. He is a
member of the Space Life Sciences Committee for
NASA’s University Space Research Association. He
was an editor of the Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology and a member of the Committee on
Human Factors and the Committee on Space Biology
and Medicine of the National Academies of Science. He
received the Flight Safety Foundation Distinguished
Service Award in 1994 for his contributions to aviation
safety through the study and development of team
training techniques (Crew Resource Management) for
flight crews. He was also awarded by Aviation Week
and Space Technology in 1994 and 2002 for his
research related to human factors in aviation. He has
written more than 200 papers, chapters, and scientific
reports. He is the co-author of the book Culture at
Work in Aviation and Medicine: National,
Organizational, and Professional Influences, and coauthor of the book Group Interaction in High Risk
Environments.
Frederick W. Taylor (1865 – 1915) is often referred as
"The Father of Scientific Management." He evaluated
jobs to determine the "One Best Way" they could be
performed. At Bethlehem Steel, Taylor attempted to
increase worker production in a shoveling task by
matching the shovel with the type of material that was
being moved (ashes, coal or ore). Although unsuccessful
in getting his concepts applied at Bethlehem Steel and
later dismissed, Taylor’s ideas were later implemented
due to his followers.
Four principles of Scientific Management:
•Scientifically justify each element of a job (task
analysis)
•Scientifically select and train the worker (personnel
selection)
•Ensure the job is done as prescribed
•Active management participation in job
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Taylor excelled in math and sports. At age 12, he
invented a harness for himself to keep from sleeping on
his back. He won the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association
doubles championship where he used a patented spoonshaped racket that he designed.
Donald Norman is cofounder of the Nielsen Norman
Group, an executive consulting firm that helps
companies produce human-centered products and
services. He is a professor in the Electrical Engineering
& Computer Science Department at Northwestern
University (teaching Product Design) and serves as a
trustee of the Institute of Design (in Chicago).
Dr. Norman believes that today’s challenges to the field
of human-computer interaction include:
•The ever-increasing complexity of everyday things
•The ever-increasing burden of security,
authentication, and identification
•The ever-increasing use of automation
Dr. Norman is well known for his books “The Design of
Everyday Things” and “Emotional Design: Why we love
(or hate) everyday things.” He’s working on a new book
titled “The Design of Future Things” which will discuss
the increasing role of automation in our homes and
automobiles.
Donald Norman
Stanley Milgram has achieved fame from his controversial
study on obedience of authority. In that study he told
participants that they would shock a confederate in an
adjoining room every time they got a question wrong. The
shock ranged from 15-450 volts in 15 volt increments. As the
shocks grew more intense, the confederate would scream out
for the participant to stop. The experimenter would urge the
participant on, saying things like “you can’t stop” and “the
experiment depends on you continuing compliance.” Milgram
found that 65% of participant rendered shock levels of 450
volts.
This study reveled how average human beings can be pressured
to do things they wouldn’t normally do if told to by an
authority figure. The Obedience study would never be
authorized today because of the ethical concerns and possible
psychological harm caused to the participants. However,
Milgram’s work on this as well as “the small world”
phenomenon has had far reaching applications in the human
factors and industrial/organizational world with regard to
compliance and lack of communication between superiors and
subordinates as well as other areas of study.
Stanley
Milgram
James Szalma is currently a researcher and assistant
professor at the University of Central Florida. However,
his academic career started with a bachelor’s degree in
Chemistry at the University of Michigan in 1990. From
there, he worked at Proctor and Gamble but did not find
the corporate world the best fit for his research and
personal interests. Therefore, he decided to pursue the
field of Applied Experimental and Human Factors at the
University of Cincinnati where he received a Masters and
Doctorate degree. He accepted a teaching position from
Farmingdale State College in New York where he helped
to establish a human factors psychology program.
Unfortunately, the events of September 11th devastated the
country and especially the state of New York leaving no
funding for new programs.
After meeting Peter Hancock, he submitted his resume to
UCF and got an offer to come here as a researcher at the
MURI-OPUS Lab. Soon after, he accepted a position as
Assistant Professor and is currently teaching a course in
the theory of motivation. His research interests include
human performance centered on the cognitive and
perceptually processes involved in such. Specifically, he
has focused on group and individual differences and threat
detection.
James Szalma
Edwin Link
An engineer, pilot, and inventor, Edwin Link was a pioneer in
the field of flight simulation. His Link Trainer (or “blue box”)
was the first flight simulator that was actually used to train
pilots when the Army Air Corps began using them in 1934. At
that time, the simulator was a painted wooden fuselage,
mounted on organ bellows operated by a vacuum pump, which
allowed the simulator to pitch and roll.
During World War II, Link began developing other simulators
to train gunners and radar operators. In the early 1950’s, he
began creating electronic simulators, which allowed pilots to
train for many different procedures.
Link Simulation and Training still makes flight simulators,
although Edwin Link died in 1981. Thankfully, the simulators
the company makes today are a far cry from the original “blue
box,” but if it weren’t for Link’s original trainer, the entire
field of simulation and training might not be what it is today.
Mark Scerbo
Mark Scerbo is currently researching human performance with
medical/surgical simulators at Old Dominion University. His
most recent research involves a simulation used to train how to
clean a wound before surgery (pictured below, right).
Dr. Scerbo also does work with adaptive automation,
particularly with attempts to decrease workload and
minimize/eliminate the vigilance decrement. He also does
research with human-computer interaction, and different types
of virtual environments. He has also done his part to fight
terrorism, promoting the importance of Human Factors in
Homeland Security.
Eduardo Salas
Eduardo Salas received his Ph.D. from Old
Dominion University. Previously he was the
Head of the Training Technology
Development Branch of the Naval Air
Warfare Center Training Systems Division
for 15 years. Eduardo currently is the trustee
chair professor of psychology at the
University of Central Florida and is the
principal scientist for human factors at the
Institute for Simulation and Training. He
belongs to various societies including APA,
HFES, and SIOP. He has written over 300
journal articles and book chapters and has co
edited 15 books. He is on the editorial boards
of several journals and has co-edited many
special issues for training and decision
making. Because of his numerous
contributions to the field, Eduardo was the
recipient of the Meritorious Civil Service
Award from the Department of the Navy.
John C. Flanagan
John C. Flanagan went to the
University of Pittsburgh and was
the founder of the American
Institutes of Research. He was also
the director of the division of
aviation psychology. He developed
aptitude tests for selecting pilots
during World War II. John is most
well known for developing the
critical incident technique. This
technique is used in various
professions to identify factors for
performance criteria and has been
used in more than a thousand
government, business, industrial
and educational research projects,
and in dissertations, professional
papers. In 1982 he retired from
research and died in April of 1996.
Marvin Minsky
• Co-founder of MIT’s AI Laboratory
• Patented the first head-mounted graphical
display (1963)
• Turing Award winner (1969) for work on AI
• Co-authored Perceptions (1969), laying the
foundation for research on artificial neural
networks, which is still relevant today
• Work includes using computational ideas to
characterize human psychological processes.
See The Society of Mind (1988)
• Fun Fact: Minsky was an advisor on 2001: A
Space Odyssey, almost killed on set by a
falling wrench.
Raymond Kurzweil
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Principal developer of the first:
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omni-font optical character recognition
print-to-speech reading machine for the blind
text-to-speech synthesizer
music synthesizer
Founded 9 businesses centered around these and
similar inventions including AI, medical
simulation, and virtual reality
Author of The Age of Spiritual Machines (2000)
describing a future in which machines become
more intelligent than humans, who in turn have
become increasingly dependent on them.
Fun Fact: Uses image and voice rendering software
to perform as a 25 year old virtual rock singer
named Ramona!
Allen Newell
Born in San Francisco in 1927, Allen Newell is known
for accomplishment in many domains, but most
notably for his contributions to human-machine
interaction and artificial intelligence. Newell majored in
physics and then worked for the RAND Corporation
studying logistics in the Air Face. Early in his career he
realized that advancing technology could enable better
artificial intelligence systems. He then began studying
human thinking through computer simulation, going so
far as to invent a chess computer with “goals” and
“aspirations” to have a certain number of good moves.
In 1961 he became a professor at Carnegie Institute of
Technology. While there, he developed the General
Problem Solver (GPS), a software program that given
the definition of a domain, solve problems. He also
contributed to the Information Processing Languages
(IPLS) which quickly became the widespread
development software for artificial intelligence systems.
Newell received the Turing Award in 1975 with
Herbert Simon for contributions to A.I. He died of
cancer in 1992.
Marv Dainoff
Marv Dainoff began his career as a “traditional”
experimental psychologist, focusing on individual
behavior. His primary interest is how physical and
task-constraints affect human performance. In the late
1970s, a colleague suggested that the best way to study
ergonomics was through a systems-based approach,
changing the nature of Dainoff’s research.
He is particularly interested in operator work posture
and performance. He has authored articles on the
ergonomics of sitting, posture and reaching, and the
design of workspaces.
Dainoff served as the 49th president of HFES. He is
currently professor of Psychology at Miami University
in Oxford, Ohio where he directs the Center for
Ergonomic Research.
Dr. Kay Stanney
Dr. Kay M. Stanney is a Professor and Trustee
Chair with UCF’sIndustrial Engineering &
Management Systems Department, where she
joined in 1992. She received her PhD in
Industrial Engineering from Purdue where she
worked with Gavriel Salvendy. Her areas
research include Human-Computer Interaction,
Multimodal Communication, Human-Virtual
Environment Interaction, System Usability
Evaluation and Augmented Cognition. She is
former Editor-in-Chief of the International
Journal of Human-Computer Interaction (19992005), cofounder and co-chair of the 1st
International Conference on Virtual Reality
(2005), co-chair of Augmented Cognition
Conference ( 2006)and is also Editor of the
Handbook of Virtual Environments: Design,
Implementation, and Applications (Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates). She has worked for Intel
as a usability engineer and currently is President
of Design Interactive, Inc. an engineering and
human factors consulting firm which provides
services in Usability, User-Centered Design,
Training System Design and Evaluation and
Next-Generation HSI Research.
Wilhelm Wundt
• Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (1832 –
1920) was a German physiologist and
psychologist. Generally he is
acknowledged as a founder of
experimental psychology and cognitive
psychology. He set up one of the first two
psychological labs in the world at the
University of Leipzig in 1879 and wrote
multiple books including Contributions to
the Theory of Sense Perception and
Lectures on the Mind of Humans. He
stressed the use of experimental methods
drawn from the natural sciences. The
methods Wundt used are still used in
modern psychophysical work, where
reactions to systematic presentations of
well-defined external stimuli are measured
in some way. He and his colleagues
developed very precise tools for measuring
reactions times, the loudness of noise and
the brilliance of colors. Many of the
founding fathers of psychology studied
under Wundt (Munsterberg, Cattell, Scott).
While trained as a cognitive psychologist, Dr. Valerie
Sims has many different interest areas and currently
works as a professor for the Applied Experimental
and Human Factors Ph.D. program at the University
of Central Florida. Dr. Sims is best known for her
work in anthropomorphism, which is the human
attributes that people give to non-human entities, and
objects. Dr. Sims has done much research in the areas
of human-computer interaction, human-animal
interaction, mental rotation in video games, spatial
research, and anthropomorphism.
She began research into the cognitive abilities of
video game players and video games before it
exploded into the vast field it is today. She currently
is in charge of the ACAT lab at UCF which is
extremely active.
Valerie Sims, Ph.D.
Sims’ is not only a distinguished researcher, but also a
well thought of professor. She has been named HFES
student chapter professor of the year on more than
one occasion (in 2000, and most recently in 2006),
and has been given other prestigious honors including
numerous Fellowships.
Dr. Ross McFarland (1901 - 1976) is known for his
human factors research in aviation. He contributed
to the literature through numerous articles and
books. His research focused on accident prevention
in not only aviation, but also motor vehicles. He
was interested in pilots, the mental and
physiological processes of pilots, and design to help
prevent accidents. Some of his work includes the
1953 book Human Factors in Air Transportation
and the 1957 book, Human Factors in Vehicular
Design and Operation with Special Reference to
Accidents. Other published works include research
on the results of oxygen deprivation, cabin
pressurization, effects of alcohol on pilots, visual
fatigue, and vehicular safety. He joined the faculty
of Harvard University in 1947. His work is still
Ross A. McFarland, Ph.D.
referenced in Human Factors texts and the related
literature. In addition many of his papers are still very
useful and important today. An example of one such paper
is Significant Trends in Human Factors Research on Motor
Vehicle Accidents in which accident rate statistics, common
causes, and possible solutions are discussed. Through his
research and insight many accidents may have been
prevented. He demonstrated the implications of whiplash
injury, and also the need of seat belts in motor vehicles.
Alexander C. Williams, Jr.
Alexander “Alex” Williams’ (1914-1962)
contributions to the early development of
engineering psychology are not as widely
known as others in the field. However, his
impact on the field through his creativity and
innovation, as well as the training of the first
generation of engineering psychologists is
undeniable.
In January of 1946, Williams began the Aviation
Psychology Lab at the University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign, one of the first academic labs of its kind.
Having served as a military pilot in WWII, his initial
research efforts focused on foundations for aviation
mission analysis and flight display and control design
principles. Williams’ and his students in the lab are
credited with many firsts: some of the first research in
transfer of training from simulators to airplanes;
development of the first simulators for air traffic
control, as well as the first true, airplane-specific
simulator (A North American, SNJ/T-6 Texan); and the
first CRT map display, among several other research
innovations. In 1955, Williams joined the Hughes
Aircraft Corporation and collaborated with fellow
psychologist, “Lick” Licklider and physicist Harold
Hance on the invention of pulse-Doppler radar.
Williams was awarded the Paul Fitts education award
by HFES for his far-reaching influence in the training
of many of the first engineering psychologists. He
was awarded the Franklin V. Taylor award for
outstanding contributions to the field by APA’s
Division 21. Though he died at the young age of 48,
his contributions to the field, his creativity and
innovation live on in the Alexander C. Williams, Jr.
Design Award given each year by HFES to recognize
outstanding contributions in the design of a major
operational system.
Information derived from “The Adolescence of Engineering Psychology” by Stanley Roscoe and “Alex Williams,
Investigator and Inventory”, HFES Bulletin, 49(10), 2006, both retrieved online.
Stanley N. Roscoe
Stan Roscoe (b. 1920) is considered the
first, formally trained, doctoral level
engineering psychologist. He was a pilot in
WWII, and graduated in 1950 from Alex
Williams’ program in Aviation Psychology at
the University of Illinois.
His dissertation was also the first in the new
field. He went to work for the Hughes Aircraft
Company in 1952, one of several aircraft
companies on the West coast of the U.S. that
employed engineering psychologist of that
time. He later returned to teach at the
University of Illinois. His life-long passion for
aviation and human factors has resulted in
numerous publications, presentations, and
awards. His research has included the areas
of human visual accommodation in flight,
aircraft controls and displays, particularly
integrated displays, the use of simulators in
aviation, and transfer of training. He was a
founding member of HFES and its president
in 1960-61. He has received numerous
awards from HFES including the Jerome H.
Ely award for best paper in the Human
Factors journal (4 times), Paul M. Fitts
education award, The Alexander C. Williams,
Jr. Design award, and the President’s
Distinguished Service Award. The Stanley
Roscoe Dissertation award is given by the
Aerospace Human Factors Association to
honor his contributions to the field. He has
developed aviation human factors
companies, and is professor emeritus of the
University of Illinois and the New Mexico
State University.
Information derived from ““The Adolescence of Engineering Psychology” by Stanley Roscoe and the
2006-07 HFES Directory & Yearbook
Guess Who?
• Can you name this famous human factors researcher?
• Hint: Research areas include information processing
and aviation human factors. He is one of many from
the University of Illinois.
Christopher Wickens, 1981