A comparison of the comprehension of procedural information using computer and hard-copy media

Users of technical procedures must be able to understand the documents to use them to perform their work. As more companies contemplate putting their procedures on-line, it is important to know whether computer systems will be as effective as traditional hard-copy presentation in communicating procedures to the employees who must use them; To determine whether there is a relationship between computer usage and the comprehension of technical procedures, an experiment was conducted among employees of a scientific and technical company in Las Vegas, Nevada. A control group read and demonstrated its comprehension of hard-copy procedures only, while an experimental group read and demonstrated its comprehension of a hard-copy and then an on-line procedure; The experimental group selected fewer correct answers on a comprehension test for the on-line than for the hard-copy procedure. This suggests that when readers accustomed to the hard-copy medium switch to the computer medium, comprehension decreases

Multiloop Manual Control of Dynamic Systems

Human interaction with a simple, multiloop dynamic system in which the human's activity was systematically varied by changing the levels of automation was studied. The control loop structure resulting from the task definition parallels that for any multiloop manual control system, is considered a sterotype. Simple models of the human in the task, and upon extending a technique for describing the manner in which the human subjectively quantifies his opinion of task difficulty were developed. A man in the loop simulation which provides data to support and direct the analytical effort is presented

A Pilot Study with a Novel Setup for Collaborative Play of the Humanoid Robot KASPAR with children with autism

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.This article describes a pilot study in which a novel experimental setup, involving an autonomous humanoid robot, KASPAR, participating in a collaborative, dyadic video game, was implemented and tested with children with autism, all of whom had impairments in playing socially and communicating with others. The children alternated between playing the collaborative video game with a neurotypical adult and playing the same game with the humanoid robot, being exposed to each condition twice. The equipment and experimental setup were designed to observe whether the children would engage in more collaborative behaviours while playing the video game and interacting with the adult than performing the same activities with the humanoid robot. The article describes the development of the experimental setup and its first evaluation in a small-scale exploratory pilot study. The purpose of the study was to gain experience with the operational limits of the robot as well as the dyadic video game, to determine what changes should be made to the systems, and to gain experience with analyzing the data from this study in order to conduct a more extensive evaluation in the future. Based on our observations of the childrens’ experiences in playing the cooperative game, we determined that while the children enjoyed both playing the game and interacting with the robot, the game should be made simpler to play as well as more explicitly collaborative in its mechanics. Also, the robot should be more explicit in its speech as well as more structured in its interactions. Results show that the children found the activity to be more entertaining, appeared more engaged in playing, and displayed better collaborative behaviours with their partners (For the purposes of this article, ‘partner’ refers to the human/robotic agent which interacts with the children with autism. We are not using the term’s other meanings that refer to specific relationships or emotional involvement between two individuals.) in the second sessions of playing with human adults than during their first sessions. One way of explaining these findings is that the children’s intermediary play session with the humanoid robot impacted their subsequent play session with the human adult. However, another longer and more thorough study would have to be conducted in order to better re-interpret these findings. Furthermore, although the children with autism were more interested in and entertained by the robotic partner, the children showed more examples of collaborative play and cooperation while playing with the human adult.Peer reviewe

A mathematical model of the human respiratory system during exercise

This paper describes a respiratory control system model and the associated computer simulations for human subjects during incremental exercise, involving work rates from zero up to the highest level in the heavy exercise domain. Modelling the respiratory control system for conditions above lactate threshold has rarely been attempted because many subsystems begin to lose proportionality in their responses. Our model is built on the basis of putative mechanisms and is based on information identified from a large body of published work. Simulation results are presented and validated using experimental results from published sources. The model confirms that the human body employs an open-loop control strategy for ventilation during exercise, which contrasts with the negative feedback control mode employed for the rest condition. It is suggested that control of ventilation simultaneously involves at least two variables, one being proportional to the pulmonary CO2 output and another being proportional to blood acidity

Effect of screen presentation on text reading and revising. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

Two studies using the methods of experimental psychology assessed the effects of two types of text presentation (page-by-page vs. scrolling) on participants' performance while reading and revising texts. Greater facilitative effects of the page-by-page presentation were observed in both tasks. The participants' reading task performance indicated that they built a better mental representation of the text as a whole and were better at locating relevant information and remembering the main ideas. Their revising task performance indicated a larger number of global corrections (which are the most difficult to make)

Process: program for research on operator control in an experimental simulated setting

An experimental tool for the investigation of human control behavior of slowly responding dynamic systems is described. Process (Program for Research on Operator Control in an Experimental Simulated Setting) is a simulation of a dynamic water-alcohol distillation system that is especially useful in research on operator training. In particular, Process was developed to conduct research on fault management skill

Johnson(-like)-Noise-Kirchhoff-Loop Based Secure Classical Communicator Characteristics, for Ranges of Two to Two Thousand Kilometers, via Model-Line

A pair of Kirchhoff-Loop-Johnson(-like)-Noise communicators, which is able to work over variable ranges, was designed and built. Tests have been carried out on a model-line performance characteristics were obtained for ranges beyond the ranges of any known direct quantum communication channel and they indicate unrivalled signal fidelity and security performance of the exchanged raw key bits. This simple device has single-wire secure key generation and sharing rates of 0.1, 1, 10, and 100 bit/second for corresponding copper wire diameters/ranges of 21 mm / 2000 km, 7 mm / 200 km, 2.3 mm / 20 km, and 0.7 mm / 2 km, respectively and it performs with 0.02% raw-bit error rate (99.98 % fidelity). The raw-bit security of this practical system significantly outperforms raw-bit quantum security. Current injection breaking tests show zero bit eavesdropping ability without triggering the alarm signal, therefore no multiple measurements are needed to build an error statistics to detect the eavesdropping as in quantum communication. Wire resistance based breaking tests of Bergou-Scheuer-Yariv type give an upper limit of eavesdropped raw bit ratio of 0.19 % and this limit is inversely proportional to the sixth power of cable diameter. Hao's breaking method yields zero (below measurement resolution) eavesdropping information.Comment: Featured in New Scientist, Jason Palmer, May 23, 2007. http://www.ece.tamu.edu/%7Enoise/news_files/KLJN_New_Scientist.pdf Corresponding Plenary Talk at the 4th International Symposium on Fluctuation and Noise, Florence, Italy (May 23, 2007

Adaptive Load Balancing: A Study in Multi-Agent Learning

We study the process of multi-agent reinforcement learning in the context of load balancing in a distributed system, without use of either central coordination or explicit communication. We first define a precise framework in which to study adaptive load balancing, important features of which are its stochastic nature and the purely local information available to individual agents. Given this framework, we show illuminating results on the interplay between basic adaptive behavior parameters and their effect on system efficiency. We then investigate the properties of adaptive load balancing in heterogeneous populations, and address the issue of exploration vs. exploitation in that context. Finally, we show that naive use of communication may not improve, and might even harm system efficiency.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for any accompanying file