Age, Skill and Hazard Perception in Driving

Twenty-one young-inexperienced drivers (17-18 years old, 2.7 months of driving license), 19 experienced drivers (22-30, 7.3 years of driving license) and 16 elderly-experienced drivers (65-72, 37.5) observed six hazard perception movies (four movies included one planned hazardous event and two movies served as control) and were instructed to press a button each time they recognized a hazard. Participants’ eye movements were recorded. Young drivers were the least sensitive in responding to immaterialized unplanned hazards, which occurred after the planned hazardous events. When the hazard was imminent, however, all drivers responded at the same time. Eye movement analysis revealed that all drivers detected the elements in the environment when they were salient, but gazing towards the right at T-intersections characterized only the more experienced drivers. The young drivers tended to gaze straight ahead. This study shows that experienced drivers learn to avoid hazards to which inexperienced drivers must respond. Responding to more hazardous situations, drivers’ knowledge base expands, resulting in a more focused, goal-directed visual search and a higher sensitivity to potential hazards

Designing robots with the context in mind -- One design does not fit all

Robots' visual qualities (VQs) impact people's perception of their characteristics and affect users' behaviors and attitudes toward the robot. Recent years point toward a growing need for Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) in various contexts and functions, interacting with various users. Since SAR types have functional differences, the user experience must vary by the context of use, functionality, user characteristics, and environmental conditions. Still, SAR manufacturers often design and deploy the same robotic embodiment for diverse contexts. We argue that the visual design of SARs requires a more scientific approach considering their multiple evolving roles in future society. In this work, we define four contextual layers: the domain in which the SAR exists, the physical environment, its intended users, and the robot's role. Via an online questionnaire, we collected potential users' expectations regarding the desired characteristics and visual qualities of four different SARs: a service robot for an assisted living/retirement residence facility, a medical assistant robot for a hospital environment, a COVID-19 officer robot, and a personal assistant robot for domestic use. Results indicated that users' expectations differ regarding the robot's desired characteristics and the anticipated visual qualities for each context and use case.Comment: Accepted to the 15th International Workshop on Human-Friendly Robotic

Developing an international survey of bicycle and helmet usage

The European Union‐funded collaborative network, COST Action TU1101: Towards safer bicycling through optimization of bicycle helmets and usage, aims to increase scientific knowledge about bicycle helmets in regards to traffic safety and to disseminate this knowledge to stakeholders, including cyclists, legislators, manufacturers, and the scientific community. The COST research team has developed a uniform international survey to better understand attitudinal and other factors that may influence bicycle and helmet usage, as well as crash risk. The online survey is being distributed by project partners in Europe, Israel, Australia, and potentially the US and Canada. The survey contains four types of questions: (1) biographical data, (2) frequency of cycling and amount of cycling for different purposes (e.g., commuting, health, recreation) and in different environments (e.g., bicycle trails, bike lanes, on sidewalks, in traffic), (3) frequency and circumstances for use and non‐use of helmets, attitudes and reasons for it, and; (4) crash involvement and level of reporting to the police. While the potential value of comparative data across countries with very different cycling cultures and safety levels is substantial, there are numerous challenges in developing, conducting, and analyzing the results of the survey. This presentation will focus on the scope of the international study, methodological issues and pitfalls of such a collaborative effort, and on initial results from one country (Israel). To illustrate, two findings from the preliminary Israeli survey indicate that: (1) none of the crashes were reported to the police including the ones involving hospital admission. Although underreporting of bicycle crashes by police is well documented in all countries the extent is unknown, and can be extreme. (2) Older riders tend to ride more for health/exercise reasons, while younger riders tend to ride more for commuting. Thus there is an interaction between riders’ age and the place and times of riding

Vibrotactile \u27on Thigh\u27 Alerting System in the Cockpit?

The objective of this research was to examine the utility of a novel placement for a vibrotactile display in the cockpit. This objective was pursued in stages through a number of research phases, here we report on the final phase concerning the benefit of the vibrotactile display in a visually loaded environment. Results support placing a directional alerting vibrotactile display on the thigh of a seated operator

Understanding and Resolving Failures in Human-Robot Interaction: Literature Review and Model Development

While substantial effort has been invested in making robots more reliable, experience demonstrates that robots operating in unstructured environments are often challenged by frequent failures. Despite this, robots have not yet reached a level of design that allows effective management of faulty or unexpected behavior by untrained users. To understand why this may be the case, an in-depth literature review was done to explore when people perceive and resolve robot failures, how robots communicate failure, how failures influence people's perceptions and feelings toward robots, and how these effects can be mitigated. Fifty-two studies were identified relating to communicating failures and their causes, the influence of failures on human-robot interaction (HRI), and mitigating failures. Since little research has been done on these topics within the HRI community, insights from the fields of human computer interaction (HCI), human factors engineering, cognitive engineering and experimental psychology are presented and discussed. Based on the literature, we developed a model of information processing for robotic failures (Robot Failure Human Information Processing, RF-HIP), that guides the discussion of our findings. The model describes the way people perceive, process, and act on failures in human robot interaction. The model includes three main parts: (1) communicating failures, (2) perception and comprehension of failures, and (3) solving failures. Each part contains several stages, all influenced by contextual considerations and mitigation strategies. Several gaps in the literature have become evident as a result of this evaluation. More focus has been given to technical failures than interaction failures. Few studies focused on human errors, on communicating failures, or the cognitive, psychological, and social determinants that impact the design of mitigation strategies. By providing the stages of human information processing, RF-HIP can be used as a tool to promote the development of user-centered failure-handling strategies for HRIs

From Ergonomics To Hedonomics: Trends In Human Factors And Technology

Ergonomics (or human factors) has been defined as the application of scientific information concerning objects, systems, and environment for human use (International Ergonomics Association, 2007). Ergonomics is commonly thought of in terms of how companies design tasks and work areas to maximize the efficiency and quality of their employees\u27 work. However, ergonomics comes into everything which involves people and technology and largely concerns the physical and cognitive interactions between people and their respective creations. Helander (1997) specified three important targets for ergonomics design activity: to improve (1) safety; (2) productivity; and (3) operator satisfaction. It is important to note that the targets for ergonomics design are constantly evolving and what Helander stated now more than a decade ago may already seem outdated to many, yet unattainable to others. To understand the changes that are rapidly occurring in this evolving area of science, it is important, first, to briefly look back at the tremendous progress and change of focus that occurred in work and work design over the past century and especially recent decades. Trends in ergonomics Prior to the Industrial Revolution, it is the work of two individuals, Ramazzinni and Jastrzebowski, that is almost alone in being solely directed to the study of work design and ergonomics. Bernardino Ramazzinni was an Italian physician (1633–1714) who, based on his medical practice and experience, wrote what is considered to be the first report on work-related complaints

From Ergonomics To Hedonomics: Trends In Human Factors And Technology-The Role Of Hedonomics Revisited

This chapter examines the transition in focus within the human factors engineering domain from the prevention of pain (Ergonomics) to the promotion of pleasure and the use of technology to facilitate well-being (Hedonomics). This transition is framed across technological advancements and their penetration into a wide range of social domains. Implications to human well-being are discussed. Barriers to implementing such hedonic principles are elucidated using examples of emerging areas of research

Road Environment and Driver Fatigue

Summary: We distinguish between fatigue caused by the demands of the driving task itself (see Hancock & Desmond, 2001) from the standard traditional approach that links fatigue predominately to the lack of sleep. Fatigue can be caused by two sources: (1) the driver’s initial state before starting the drive, or (2) the characteristics of the drive and the road environment; both sources can have a cumulative effect. It is not clear what principles are involved in making one road environment more prone to inducing driver fatigue than another. For the purpose of the current presentation we provide empirical data on road environment and driver fatigue summarized from a series of three experiments that the first author has conducted at Ben-Gurion University (see Oron-Gilad, 2003; Oron-Gilad, et al., 2001). Those are examined in relation to the Hancock and Warm (1989) model of adaptability. The most significant and consistent findings of the three experiment is in the way that fatigue is reflected in driving performance across different road environments. These findings suggest that drivers are flexible in the way they handle fatigue over the course of time. They can adopt different strategies to compensate for their performance decrement, by focusing efforts on critical elements of each different type of roadway. Understanding of this dependency of fatigue symptoms on road conditions is of especial relevance to designers of technological fatigue countermeasures as well as those of future roadway systems