Cognitive Ergonomics and Human Performance

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcard set covering cognitive ergonomics, memory processes, emotional design, user experience facets, human error theories, GEMS framework, and safety prevention tools.

Ergonomics

The science of fitting the job to the worker.

Ergonomic Study Area: Workers

The study area focused on what individual workers bring to the job.

Ergonomic Study Area: Tools

The study area focused on what tools bring to the worker.

Ergonomic Study Area: Tasks

The study area focused on what the worker must perform or do.

Ergonomic Study Area: Environment

The study area focused on the conditions surrounding the worker and the tool.

Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTD)

Soft tissue injuries that occur gradually over time due to repetitive physical stress during work tasks.

Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI)

Soft tissue injuries caused by repeated motion or cumulative physical strain that develop gradually.

Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD)

Soft tissue injuries occurring gradually that affect the muscles, nerves, blood vessels, ligaments, and tendons.

Engineering Controls (Ergonomics)

Physical intervention methods such as workstation design and setup, ergonomically designed tools, ergonomically designed equipment, and load weight reduction.

Administrative Controls (Ergonomics)

Procedural workplace adjustments including proper NIOSH lifting techniques, team lifting, stretching, work rotation, task variety, and increased rest breaks.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE in Ergonomics)

Wearable safety equipment including gripping gloves, knee pads, vibration gloves, thermal gloves, lifting straps, and shoulder harnesses.

Cognitive Ergonomics

A specialty area of ergonomics concerned with mental processes (such as perception, memory, reasoning, and motor response) as they affect interactions among humans and other elements of a system.

Initial Domains Investigated by Cognitive Ergonomics

Nuclear power plants, air traffic control systems, and medical anesthetics, which feature complex environments requiring exceptional focus for life-threatening decisions.

Softer Domains of Cognitive Ergonomics

Applications studied after initial high-risk safety research, including banking, office work, and leisure activities.

Physical Ergonomics vs. Cognitive Ergonomics

Physical ergonomics focuses on the human body, whereas cognitive ergonomics focuses on brain processes including perception, interpretation, and decision-making.

Applications of Cognitive Ergonomics

Common operational applications including human-machine interaction, software design, design of training programs, and design of signages.

User Experience (UX)

An approach that focuses on having a deep understanding of users, their needs, limitations, values, abilities, and business managing goals for a project.

Useful (UX Facet)

A facet of user experience requiring a product to meet specific standards or requirements.

Usable (UX Facet)

A facet of user experience describing how easily users accomplish tasks without errors and without needing a manual.

Desirable (UX Facet)

A facet of user experience focused on appealing to users emotionally through design and aesthetic qualities.

Findable (UX Facet)

A facet of user experience where web sites are navigable and elements are locatable so users can easily find what they need.

Accessible (UX Facet)

A facet of user experience ensuring web sites and products are usable by people with disabilities, who represent more than $10\%$ of the population.

Credible (UX Facet)

A facet of user experience where design elements influence whether users trust and believe all the claims made by designers and developers.

Valuable (UX Facet)

A facet of user experience centered on how effectively the product delivers explicit benefits to the end user.

ED Score Calculation Formulas

Scoring system where parameters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 use $\text{Temp Score} = \text{Scale} - 1$, parameters 5 and 7 use $\text{Temp Score} = 5 - \text{Scale}$, and total $\text{ED Score} = \sum \text{Temp Score} \times 2.5$.

Cognition

The mental processing that includes working memory attention, comprehending and producing language, calculating, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making.

Cognitive Psychology

The branch of psychology that focuses on the study of human thinking, which developed around the late 1950s.

Sensation

The initial stage of cognitive processing referring to awareness about various stimuli across sensory modalities without interpretation.

Perception

The cognitive stage where sensory information is processed and interpreted to determine the actual meaning of available stimuli.

Visual Perception

The perceptual process of interpreting stimuli received through sight.

Auditory Perception

The perceptual process of interpreting stimuli received through hearing.

Information Process Sequence

The structural cognitive flow represented by the progression: Input $\rightarrow$ Cognition $\rightarrow$ Response.

Primary Focus of Cognitive Psychology

Memory, specifically focusing on the storage and retrieval of information.

Human Mind (Information Processing View)

A system analogous to a computer that processes information through logical rules and strategies with limited processing capacity.

Memory

The retention of learned material involving three primary stages: encoding, storage, and retrieval.

Encoding

The initial memory stage involving the processing and transformation of incoming sensory input into a retainable format.

Storage (Memory)

The secondary memory stage involving the retention of encoded information over time.

Retrieval (Memory)

The final memory process of accessing and recovering stored information for a particular purpose.

Information Processing Model

A framework describing mental processes where sensory inputs enter sensory store, attended information moves to Short Term Memory, and rehearsed information transfers to Long Term Memory.

Sensory Memory (SM)

The initial entry stage of memory that briefly holds raw environmental stimuli from sensory sources before information is transferred to short term store.

Visual Sensory Memory Duration

The brief holding duration for visual sensory input, which lasts less than $\frac{1}{2}\text{ second}$.

Auditory Sensory Memory Duration

The brief holding duration for auditory sensory input, which lasts less than $3\text{ seconds}$.

Short Term Memory (STM)

Also known as working memory, it relates to what an individual is actively thinking about at any given moment in time.

Maintenance Rehearsal

The simple repetition of information in short term memory, extending retention from $15\text{--}20\text{ seconds}$ up to $20\text{ minutes}$.

Elaborative Rehearsal

A rehearsal strategy that assigns organization and meaning to material while it is being repeated to facilitate long term storage.

Short Term Memory Capacity

The limited working memory storage capacity of $5$ to $9$ chunks of information.

Long Term Memory (LTM)

A memory store with infinite capacity and permanent duration where information is placed into organized categories.

Cause of Forgetting in LTM

Trouble retrieving or accessing stored information, typically caused by information having been stored in an unorganized way.

Declarative Memory

Also called explicit memory; long term memory that requires deliberate effort to retrieve and involves facts and events that can be consciously recalled and verbalized.

Episodic Memory

A subtype of declarative memory for personal experiences and specific events, including temporal and spatial context.

Semantic Memory

A subtype of declarative memory for general knowledge, facts, concepts, and word meanings independent of personal experience.

Non-Declarative Memory

Long term memory involving skills and behaviors that are performed automatically without conscious awareness.

Procedural Memory

A subtype of non-declarative memory involving the acquisition of motor skills and habits through repeated practice without conscious awareness.

Perceptual Memory

A subtype of non-declarative memory involving an improved ability to recognize and respond to sensory stimuli through prior experience.

Chunking

An encoding strategy of breaking continuous information into smaller, manageable units or chunks.

Mnemonics

A memory strategy designed to aid the encoding, retention, and systematic retrieval of information.

Attention

The cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one specific aspect of the environment while ignoring other competing stimuli, allocating limited processing resources.

Selective / Focused Attention

A variety of attention that selects one specific channel or location from many competing environmental inputs.

Sustained Attention

A variety of attention that maintains target detection and vigilance continuously over an extended period of time.

Divided Attention

A variety of attention that allocates cognitive effort across concurrent tasks or multiple sensory modalities simultaneously.

Executive Attention

A variety of attention responsible for planning, switching between tasks, and resolving conflicts between competing cognitive processes.

William James' Definition of Attention

The taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what may seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thoughts, implying withdrawal from some things to deal effectively with others.

Automaticity

Knowing how to perform an arbitrary task at a competent level without requiring conscious effort or occupying low-level mental details (unconscious competence).

Unconscious Competence

Another term for automaticity, describing execution of skills on 'auto-pilot' where primary task performance is minimally affected by ongoing secondary tasks.

Role of Practice in Attention

Sufficient practice allows an activity to become automaticized, enabling the mind to focus on concurrent thoughts or activities while performing the automatic task.

Johns Hopkins Cell Phone Driving Study Finding

Research showing drivers are less safe when using cell phones because the brain cannot simultaneously give full attention to both visual driving and auditory listening tasks.

Multi-tasking / Task Switching

The process of rapidly shifting attention back and forth between concurrent tasks.

Switching Cost

The measurable cognitive penalty incurred in time and performance quality when switching between different tasks.

Emotion

A complex reaction pattern, involving experiential, behavioral, and physiological elements.

Three Components of Emotion

Subjective Experience, Physiological Response, and Behavioral or Expressive Response.

Positive Human Emotions

Emotions such as hopeful, confident, and peaceful that lead to feeling good about oneself and result in an emotionally happy state.

Negative Human Emotions

Emotions such as exhausted, panic, and obnoxious that sap energy, create a lack of desire to act, and undermine personal effectiveness.

Emotional Design Model

The concept of creating designs that evoke specific emotions which result in positive user experiences.

Visceral Processing Level

The brain processing level concerned with users' initial gut reactions or first impressions of a design's appearance.

Behavioral Processing Level

The subconscious brain processing level where users evaluate how a design helps them achieve goals, focusing on functionality and usability.

Reflective Processing Level

The conscious brain processing level where users judge a design's long-term performance, benefits, value for money, and personal impact after use.

Visceral Design Principle

Principle asserting that good visceral design is aesthetic, unobtrusive, and long lasting.

Behavioral Design Principles

Principles asserting that good behavioral design makes a product understandable, useful, innovative, thorough down to the last detail, and uses as little design as possible.

Reflective Design Principles

Principles asserting that good reflective design is honest and environmentally friendly.

Pleasure Model

An alternative affective framework proposed by Patrick W. Jordan (2000) focusing on four distinct types of pleasure derived from product interactions.

Physio-pleasure

Pleasure in Jordan's model related to bodily aspects and direct sensory experiences such as touch, smell, and taste.

Socio-pleasure

Pleasure in Jordan's model derived from relationships and interactions with other people.

Psycho-pleasure

Pleasure in Jordan's model associated with cognitive and emotional reactions during product use.

Ideo-pleasure

Pleasure in Jordan's model pertaining to people's values, ethics, and philosophical aesthetics.

Jordan Hierarchy of Consumer Needs: Functionality

The most fundamental level of consumer need in Jordan's hierarchy, representing core utility.

Jordan Hierarchy of Consumer Needs: Usability

The second level in Jordan's hierarchy of consumer needs, focusing on ease of use.

Jordan Hierarchy of Consumer Needs: Pleasure

The top level in Jordan's hierarchy, where consumers expect products to be emotional and pleasurable in addition to functional and usable.

Jordan's Hierarchy of Consumer Needs Diagram

A 3-tier pyramid diagram placing Functionality at the base, Usability in the middle, and Pleasure at the top.

Basic Model of Product Appraisal Process

A model developed by Desmet (2002) proposing that product appraisal depends on product attributes evaluated against user concerns, which directly generates emotion.

Basic Model of Product Appraisal Process Diagram

A process diagram illustrating Concern and Product inputs combining into Appraisal, which directly drives Emotion.

Kansei Engineering

An ergonomics technology established by Mitsuo Nagamachi that translates human consumer feelings and emotional demands into concrete product design specifications.

Kansei

A Japanese word encompassing English concepts such as sensitivity, sense, sensibility, feeling, aesthetics, emotion, affection, and intuition.

Kansei Engineering Process Step 1

Identify Target Users and Emotions.

Kansei Engineering Process Step 2

Collect Product Samples.

Kansei Engineering Process Step 3

User Evaluation via Kansei Words Survey.

Kansei Engineering Process Step 4

Statistical Analysis using tools such as Factor Analysis, Regression, and Neural Networks.

Kansei Engineering Process Step 5

Translate statistical analysis results into actionable Design Guidelines.

Error

The failure of a planned action to be completed as intended (error of execution) or the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim (error of planning).

Active Failures

Errors occurring at the level of the frontline operator whose adverse effects are felt almost immediately.

Latent Conditions

System defects removed from direct operator control that result in workplace error-provoking conditions and long-lasting holes in system defenses.