Human Factors Psychology

Human factors (also known as ergonomics or human engineering) is a scientific discipline which examines human behavior and capabilities in order to find the best ways to design products, equipment and systems for maximum safe, effective, satisfying use by humans. Human factors faculty in our department are currently working on research in a variety of settings and from diverse perspectives areas including:

• basic human performance - perception (auditory and visual), cognition (action-selection, memory, decision making), workload, skill acquisition, and knowledge engineering
• human-computer interaction - web design, multimodal interfaces, and usability testing
• aviation psychology - workload, situation awareness, and interface design for air traffic management

Faculty Involved in Human Factors Research

Dan Chiappe - Figurative language; reading; evolutionary psychology; attention; cognition.

Young-Hee Cho - Decision making.

Jack Dwyer - Cognitive modeling; simulation design; aviation psychology.

William Kelemen - Metacognition; prospective memory; cognition.

Lisa Maxfield - Cognitive and neural basis of selective attention; attention; memory.

Sara Smith - Psycholinguistics, memory and cognition.

Thomas Strybel - Auditory-visual space perception; auditory-visual displays; multisensory interaction; aviation psychology; human-computer interaction; human factors.

Kim Vu - Attention, cognition, display-control compatibility, human information.

Our department has two centers that are an integral part of the human factors program:

The Center for the Study of Advanced Aeronautic Technologies (CSAAT) conducts research on the human factors and air-traffic-management issues that arise from the introduction of new air vehicles, technologies, and operational concepts in the National Airspace System.

The Center for Usability in Design and Assessment (CUDA) is a usability testing laboratory that evaluates software and Web interfaces for ease of use, effectiveness, and satisfaction to users.