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This chapter provides a Brunswikian perspective on human interaction with everyday technologies, such as traffic lights, automotive devices (e.g., warning systems), and also advanced technologies, such as flight control systems in modern airliners. It applies this perspective toward suggesting a framework for evaluating interface designs and for ultimately improving the usability, robustness, and effectiveness of a range of interactive technologies. A field study of human-automation interaction in commercial aviation is described. The crucial role played by continuity in supporting the intuitive, adaptive mode behavior Brunswik described as vicarious functioning is addressed. In addition, the implications for the design of human-automation interaction are given. It is hoped that the insights that have been offered about the geometry of human-technology interaction will take at least a small step toward remedying the user frustration, confusion, and in the case of high-risk systems, the possibility of disaster.

This book takes steps toward building what Jerome Bruner referred to as a “workable concept of mind”. It specifically reports the methods and models that can be fruitfully applied to solving practically relevant problems in human-technology interaction. Six themes unite the chapters' orientation toward developing a concept of mind that is both workable and valuable from a cognitive engineering perspective. These themes are illustrated in the selection of research problems, methods, and analysis and modeling techniques in the following chapters. Specifically discussed in this chapter are the discussions given on an ecological or systems perspective, an adaptive, functional perspective, environmental uncertainty, representativeness, formal perspective, and problem-solving perspective.

This chapter begins to see how Brunswikian psychology can impact critical issues in the design of human-technology interaction. The compiled research exhibits a number of positive features. The chapter briefly reviews what is believed to be the most sophisticated and creative attempt in the cognitive engineering literature to use dynamical systems theory (DST) to model human behavior in a Brunswikian fashion. The application of DST within the umbrella of an ecological approach resulted in several critical features. The promise of ecological psychology for the human factors and cognitive engineering communities is beginning to be realized. The chapter shows the application of existing methods and theories to new problems, of innovations to existing methods and theories, and perhaps most important of all, of new methods and theories inspired by the tenets of ecological psychology. It is believed that the future of human factors and cognitive engineering lies in continuing to explore this path defined by Brunswik and Gibson, broadly defined. The chapters in this book represent a vital step forward.

This chapter offers a discussion on the reflections from a judgment and decision making perspective. The collaboration between judgment and decision making (JDM) researchers and human-technology interaction (HTI) researchers is also described. The world of HTI looks like one of great excitement and challenging, important problems. It is a world to which the JDM community can and should make a richer connection. There are problems to which one can contribute and from which the other can learn. By stretching beyond the range of comfort to connect with these new issues, better understanding on the meanings and limits of the familiar world needs to be attained. In general, collaboration can be demonstrated with potential payoffs for all concerned. This chapter states that it is hoped this book will be the stimulus to bring this about.

Christopher Wickens' landmark book Engineering Psychology and Human Performance brought together the seemingly unrelated fields of cognitive psychology and engineering. This book and the two subsequent editions have had an enormous impact on engineering design and had garnered more than 780 citations in the scientific literature as of June 2005. One important contribution of this book was to relate the substantial theoretical and empirical results of psychology to engineering problems associated with human-technology interaction. Another important contribution was to demonstrate the important theoretical contributions of engineering to basic research. Several recent books and reviews suggest that affect plays a critical role in cognition and in human interaction with technology. This chapter takes the study of attention into new realms by considering the role of affect in information processing. It notes that a rapidly growing body of empirical evidence now demonstrates that factors such as the emotional content of stimuli and responses to technology should no longer be ignored in the application of psychology to design.

The field of human factors studies the interaction between humans and technological systems in order to optimize human–system performance, research that has traditionally been focused on observation and experiment in laboratory and real-world settings. However, a multidisciplinary subfield of human factors called human performance modeling has recently emerged that involves the development and application of mathematical models, computer simulation techniques, and computational data analysis methods to the study of human performance. This chapter provides an introduction to the use of computational modeling, simulation, and analysis techniques in human factors research, with an eye toward how such methods may be used to optimize human performance in extreme settings.