Global Perspectives On The Ecology Of Human Machine Systems

There is a growing consensus in the human factors/ergonomics community that human factors research has had little impact on significant applied problems. Some have suggested that the problem lies in the fact that much HF/E research has been based on the wrong type of psychology, an information processing view of psychology that is reductionistic and context-free. Ecological psychology offers a viable alternative, presenting a richer view of human behavior that is holistic and contextualized. The papers presented in these two volumes show the conceptual impact that ecological psychology can have on HF/E, as well as presenting a number of specific examples illustrating the ecological approach to human-machine systems. It is the first collection of papers that explicitly draws a connection between these two fields. While work in this area is only just beginning, the evidence available suggests that taking an ecological approach to human factors/ergonomics helps bridge the existing gap between basic research and applied problems.

The papers presented in this book show the conceptual impact that ecological psychology can have on human factors/ergonomics, as well as presenting a number of examples illustrating the ecological approach to human/machine systems.

The papers presented in this book show the conceptual impact that ecological psychology can have on human factors/ergonomics, as well as presenting a number of examples illustrating the ecological approach to human/machine systems.

The deep integration of technology into our modern society forces us to rethink the relationship humans have to their surroundings. The rise of complex socio-technical systems denotes how humans and technology have entered a symbiotic relationship where the coordinated and fluent interaction between the two is a crucial condition for modern societies to function. The disharmony in the relationship between humans and technology has immediate and serious consequences. Accidents and failed operations in transport, incomprehensible user interfaces, and failure to learn from experience are all examples from everyday life, suggesting that the understanding of human-technology relationships is not sufficient. This book investigates how humans relate to technology in our modern society, and how the basic assumption of human thought and behavior guide human efforts to improve and control technology. The fact is that the skilled use of technology in expert systems and everyday life challenges the traditional conception of humans and technology as two separate elements in the analysis of work. The book shows how this dualism is evident and problematic in a wide range of areas, such as investigation of human error in accidents, case studies of innovative interface solutions, simulator training strategies, analysis of work practices in complex systems, and traffic safety research. Embodied Minds - Technical Environments supplements the ongoing effort to understand how technology can be integrated with more confidence in modern society.

There is a growing consensus in the human factors/ergonomics community that human factors research has had little impact on significant applied problems. Some have suggested that the problem lies in the fact that much HF/E research has been based on the wrong type of psychology, an information processing view of psychology that is reductionistic and context-free. Ecological psychology offers a viable alternative, presenting a richer view of human behavior that is holistic and contextualized. The papers presented in these two volumes show the conceptual impact that ecological psychology can have on HF/E, as well as presenting a number of specific examples illustrating the ecological approach to human-machine systems. It is the first collection of papers that explicitly draws a connection between these two fields. While work in this area is only just beginning, the evidence available suggests that taking an ecological approach to human factors/ergonomics helps bridge the existing gap between basic research and applied problems.

There is a growing consensus in the human factors/ergonomics community that human factors research has had little impact on significant applied problems. Some have suggested that the problem lies in the fact that much HF/E research has been based on the wrong type of psychology, an information processing view of psychology that is reductionistic and context-free. Ecological psychology offers a viable alternative, presenting a richer view of human behavior that is holistic and contextualized. The papers presented in these two volumes show the conceptual impact that ecological psychology can have on HF/E, as well as presenting a number of specific examples illustrating the ecological approach to human-machine systems. It is the first collection of papers that explicitly draws a connection between these two fields. While work in this area is only just beginning, the evidence available suggests that taking an ecological approach to human factors/ergonomics helps bridge the existing gap between basic research and applied problems.

In everyday life, and particularly in the modern workplace, information technology and automation increasingly mediate, augment, and sometimes even interfere with how humans interact with their environment. How to understand and support cognition in human-technology interaction is both a practically and socially relevant problem. The chapters in this volume frame this problem in adaptive terms: How are behavior and cognition adapted, or perhaps ill-adapted, to the demands and opportunities of an environment where interaction is mediated by tools and technology? The authors draw heavily on the work of Egon Brunswik, a pioneer in ecological and cognitive psychology, as well as on modern refinements and extensions of Brunswikian ideas, including Hammond's Social Judgment Theory, Gigerenzer's Ecological Rationality and Anderson's Rational Analysis. Inspired by Brunswik's view of cognition as "coming to terms" with the "casual texture" of the external world, the chapters in this volume provide quantitative and computational models and measures for studying how people come to terms with an increasingly technological ecology, and provide insights for supporting cognition and performance through design, training, and other interventions. The methods, models, and measures presented in this book provide timely and important resources for addressing problems in the rapidly growing field of human-technology interaction. The book will be of interest to researchers, students, and practitioners in human factors, cognitive engineering, human-computer interaction, judgment and decision making, and cognitive science.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory, COSIT 2007, held in Melbourne, Australia in September 2007. The 27 revised full papers were carefully reviewed from 102 submissions, and they are organized in topical sections on cultural studies, semantics, similarity, mapping and representation, perception and cognition, reasoning and algorithms, navigation and landmarks, as well as uncertainty and imperfection.