Wires that, Usually, We Never Notice

Richard stopped our car partwayup our drive and did heever have a puzzled look:whye\u27s my wife just standing there,exiled and outside? I pointed in replyto the wires running overhead,wires that, usually, we never notice,and motioned to their juncture with our housewhere a little fire had started

Human Factors Ground Test Assessment and Protocol Development for Space Radiation Protection Concepts

Human factors evaluations and procedures were developed in a series of ground tests in order to assess novel radiation protection concepts developed by industry leaders in aerospace. In addition, NASAs current prototype space radiation protection vest and storm shelter concept were tested using the newly drafted human factors assessment materials. Evaluation procedures and wearable garment technology were tested at Johnson Space Center (JSC) using a small sample of current NASA crewmembers for garment testing. Results for the garment analysis indicated that the current radiation vest ultimately did not hinder task performance or impede mobility. Results from the storm shelter analysis indicated that crew were able to construct the shelter within the time allotment without difficulty and limited reference to instruction materials. These data will be used to further develop wearable garment technology and storm shelter designs. Newly developed procedures will be used in future ground tests to further assess novel radiation protection concepts

The Effects of Task Criticality and Target Modality on a Simulated Battlefield Search Task

Warfighters must rely on lengthy instruction manuals when asked to perform tasks in critical environments. These instruction manuals are predominantly written in text and rarely include images. Several theoretical frameworks, including the Pictorial Superiority Effect, posit images to be more effective forms of instruction for short-term memory recall tasks. It is unclear whether pictures are superior forms of instruction for use in tasks with potential life-threatening consequences. Recently, studies have attempted to define and manipulate task criticality to determine the effects a critical scenario may have on operator performance. Findings have been equivocal, perhaps because of the ambiguity associated with the definition of task criticality. The purpose of the current work was to determine whether images or textual descriptions were more effective forms of instruction for a target search task in a critical scenario (defined as a task with life-threatening consequences). Forty participants were asked to participate in this study. Twenty participants had military deployment experience and twenty participants were students with no deployment experience. Participants were asked to traverse a virtual battlefield environment to search for targets; half of which were presented with images and the other half with textual descriptions. Participants searched for targets under conditions of both low and high task criticality. This study used a 2 × 2 × 2 quasi-experimental mixed design and results were analyzed using a series of mixed ANOVAs. The results showed both samples collected more pictorial targets in the high criticality condition than in the low criticality condition. Participants collected pictorial targets faster than lexical targets, and military participants took longer to locate textual targets in the high criticality condition. Military personnel and students made more errors searching for lexical targets, and military overall made more errors than students in both conditions. Military participants experienced higher cognitive workload in the high criticality condition. These results lend credence to the Pictorial Superiority Effect, Dual-Coding Theory, and the Critical Decision Method. As pictorial information may lower cognitive resource demand, these results suggest that warfighters and other operators should be presented with pictorial information during a critical task to increase performance and minimize errors