A proposed psychological model of driving automation

This paper considers psychological variables pertinent to driver automation. It is anticipated that driving with automated systems is likely to have a major impact on the drivers and a multiplicity of factors needs to be taken into account. A systems analysis of the driver, vehicle and automation served as the basis for eliciting psychological factors. The main variables to be considered were: feed-back, locus of control, mental workload, driver stress, situational awareness and mental representations. It is expected that anticipating the effects on the driver brought about by vehicle automation could lead to improved design strategies. Based on research evidence in the literature, the psychological factors were assembled into a model for further investigation

Toward Realism in Human Performance Simulation

This chapter focuses on challenges to improving the realism of socially intelligent agents and attempts to reflect the state of the art in human behavior modeling with particular attention to the impact of values, emotion, and physiology/stress upon individual and group decision-making. The goal is to help those interested in constructing more realistic software agents for use in human performance simulations in both training and analysis settings. The first two sections offer an assessment of the state of the practice and of the need to make better use of human performance moderator functions (PMFs) published in the behavioral literature. The third section pursues this goal by providing an illustrative framework for integrating existing PMF theories and models, such as those on physiology and stress, cognitive and emotive processes, individual differences, and group and crowd behavior, among others. The fourth section presents asymmetric warfare and civil unrest case studies to examine some of the concerns affecting implementation of PMFs such as verification, validation, and interoperability with existing simulators, artificial life emulators, and artificial intelligence components. The final section of this chapter concludes with lessons learned and with some challenges if the field is to reach a greater level of maturity

Visuospatial ability as a predictor of novice performance in ultrasound–guided regional anesthesia

Background: Visuospatial ability correlates positively with novice performance of simple laparoscopic tasks. The aims of this study were to identify if visuospatial ability could predict technical performance of an ultrasound–guided needle task by novice operators, and to describe how emotional state, intelligence and fear of failure impact on this. Methods: Sixty medical student volunteers enrolled in this observational study. We used an instructional video to standardize training for ultrasound-guided needle advancement in a turkey breast model and assessed volunteers’ performance independently by two assessors using composite error score (CES) and global rating scale (GRS). We assessed their ‘visuospatial ability’ with mental rotation test (MRT), group embedded figures test (GEFT) and Alice Heim group ability (AH4) test. ‘Emotional state’ was judged with UWIST mood adjective checklist (UMACL) and fear of failure, and ‘general cognitive ability’ with numerical reasoning test (NRT-20). Results: High CES scores (high error rate) were associated with low MRT scores (= −0.54; P<0.001). Better GRS scores were associated with better MRT scores (= 0.47; P<0.001). Regarding emotions, GRS scores were low when anxiety levels were high (= −0.35; P= 0.005) and CES scores (errors) were low when individuals reported feeling vigorous and active (= −0.30; P= 0.01). Conclusions: MRT predicts novice performance of an ultrasound-guided needling task on a turkey model, and as a trait measure could be used as a tool to focus training resources on less able individuals. Anxiety adversely affects performance. Both may therefore prove useful in directing targeted training in USGRA

Selection of Norwegian police drone operators: an evaluation of selected cognitive tests from “The Vienna Test System"

A nationwide sample of 129 police officers participated in a study aimed at validating and presenting practical implications of a selection procedure for applicants to an educational program for Norwegian police drone pilots. The subjects were part of a selection program for a training and qualification course for police drone pilots. The selection program consisted of tests of spatial orientation, logical reasoning, attentional selection, sustained attention, and visual short-term memory, in addition to a performance test in a drone flight simulator. The aim of the study was to evaluate the cognitive tests used in the selection program and their relation to performance during the simulated flight. The results from the untrained applicants revealed low-to-moderate intercorrelations of the cognitive tests. Only spatial orientation, logical reasoning, and attentional selection were correlated to the performance measures of skills and proficiency. Stepwise regression analysis showed that only spatial orientation and attentional selection had unique contributions in explaining the variance in both measures of performance. Implications are discussed on both practical and scientific levels. The positive implications of using untrained respondents, the use of proficiency measures in addition to skills, the building of a clearinghouse for drone selection data, and considering both the job-analyzes and the total test-performance when interpreting the applicant’s test-scores are discussed.publishedVersio

Applying psychological science to the CCTV review process: a review of cognitive and ergonomic literature

As CCTV cameras are used more and more often to increase security in communities, police are spending a larger proportion of their resources, including time, in processing CCTV images when investigating crimes that have occurred (Levesley &amp; Martin, 2005; Nichols, 2001). As with all tasks, there are ways to approach this task that will facilitate performance and other approaches that will degrade performance, either by increasing errors or by unnecessarily prolonging the process. A clearer understanding of psychological factors influencing the effectiveness of footage review will facilitate future training in best practice with respect to the review of CCTV footage. The goal of this report is to provide such understanding by reviewing research on footage review, research on related tasks that require similar skills, and experimental laboratory research about the cognitive skills underpinning the task. The report is organised to address five challenges to effectiveness of CCTV review: the effects of the degraded nature of CCTV footage, distractions and interrupts, the length of the task, inappropriate mindset, and variability in people’s abilities and experience. Recommendations for optimising CCTV footage review include (1) doing a cognitive task analysis to increase understanding of the ways in which performance might be limited, (2) exploiting technology advances to maximise the perceptual quality of the footage (3) training people to improve the flexibility of their mindset as they perceive and interpret the images seen, (4) monitoring performance either on an ongoing basis, by using psychophysiological measures of alertness, or periodically, by testing screeners’ ability to find evidence in footage developed for such testing, and (5) evaluating the relevance of possible selection tests to screen effective from ineffective screener

Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications

The indirect effect of experience between personality hardiness and situational awareness

Studies on the relation between personality and Situation Awareness (SA) have been inconclusive. The present study investigates the relation between personality hardiness and SA during a simulated police scenario using a mediation approach. One hundred and sixty-seven police officers completed the test in a scenario with the arrest of a suspected perpetrator. The results showed a direct relationship neither between hardiness and SA, nor a total effect of the model tested. However, an indirect relationship between hardiness and SA, through the amount of annual operational training, beyond mandatory training, occurred. This indirect effect of training occurred for the total hardiness score, and for the control dimension on the facet level of the Dispositional Resilience Scale (15 items). The findings were interpreted as police officers high on hardiness being more motivated and engaged in voluntary operational training. By being more involved in training, they were gaining more experience in perceiving and interpreting critical stimuli in operational scenarios. Thus, the findings of an indirect effect was seen as a result of the relationship between experience and SA

Integration Of Cognitive And Physical Factors To Model Human Performance In Fluid Power Systems

Fluid power technology is constantly evolving as a result of the interaction between the human and the system. Systems such as the hydraulic excavator utilize this technology in order to deliver safe, efficient, and effective performance. However, traditional research has placed much emphasis on technical performance rather than on human components. Imbalances of this nature demonstrate inadequate understanding, lack of knowledge, and limited research on the factors affecting performance. This research aims to address these shortcomings by using an integrated approach to better model human performance in fluid power systems

Human Behavior Models for Agents in Simulators and Games: Part I: Enabling Science with PMFserv

This article focuses on challenges to improving the realism of socially intelligent agents and attempts to reflect the state of the art in human behavior modeling with particular attention to the impact of personality/cultural values and affect as well as biology/stress upon individual coping and group decision-making. The first section offers an assessment of the state of the practice and of the need to integrate valid human performance moderator functions (PMFs) from traditionally separated sub-fields of the behavioral literature. The second section pursues this goal by postulating a unifying architecture and principles for integrating existing PMF theories and models. It also illustrates a PMF testbed called PMFserv created for implementating and studying how PMFs may contribute to such an architecture. To date it interconnects versions of PMFs on physiology and stress (Janis-Mann, Gillis-Hursh, others); personality, cultural and emotive processes (Damasio, Cognitive Appraisal-OCC, value systems); perception (Gibsonian affordance); social processes (relations, identity, trust, nested intentionality); and cognition (affect- and stress-augmented decision theory, bounded rationality). The third section summarizes several usage case studies (asymmetric warfare, civil unrest, and political leaders) and concludes with lessons learned. Implementing and inter-operating this broad collection of PMFs helps to open the agenda for research on syntheses that can help the field reach a greater level of maturity. Part II presents a case study in using PMFserv for rapid scenario composability and realistic agent behavior