Acceptance of Computer Technology: Understanding the User and the Organizational Characteristics

A systematic analysis of acceptance of computer technology was conducted to identify variables that would provide insight to understanding technology acceptance. This led to a development of a comprehensive qualitative model that captures the individual and the organizational user characteristics that influence the acceptance of computer technology. This model suggests that designers must be mindful of the role that sociological and organizational variables play in technology acceptance. Such factors go beyond basic usability issues in the design process. Attention to these variables may increase the acceptance and therefore the diffusion of new computer technologies.

Reliability and Age-Related Effects on Trust and Reliance of a Decision Support Aid

Trust has been identified by previous research as a key determinant of automation reliance and usage (Lee & Moray, 1992). One factor that may affect trust and reliance on automation is the reliability of the automation (Parasuraman 1993; Riley, 1996). The effects of automation reliability and age on perceived reliability, trust, and reliance were investigated. A driving-like task was created and the reliability of the automation was manipulated by generating three levels (100%, 80% and 60%). Automation was present in the form of a decision support system that indicated the state of the gauges. Results indicated that high levels of automation reliability lead to increased reliance and higher subjective levels of trust. There were age-related effects on the ability to perceive the reliability of the automation and levels of trust where older adults were more sensitive to the change between 80% and 60% reliability than the younger adults.

Age as a Predictor of Adequate Warning Design

Although hundreds of studies have been conducted in the separate fields of cognitive aging and warnings, little is known about the intersection of aging and warnings. In recent years, there has been a growth in interest regarding how age-related declines in cognitive functioning might affect different stages of the warning process. This paper discusses how chronological age may be used in warnings research as a means of determining whether warnings are processed effectively. Generalizations to other special subpopulations are made.

Don't Let Me Down: The Role of Operator Expectations in Human-Automation Interaction

This study investigated how user expectations of automation performance influenced reliance and how expectations interacted with types of automation failures. Participants were assigned to a low, high, or neutral expectations group and interacted with an automated collision avoidance system that either committed errors of false detection (false alarms) or incorrect rejection (misses). Participants with high expectations had higher initial reliance than participants in the low and neutral expectations conditions. Overall, the high expectations group exhibited over-reliance behavior choosing to rely at a higher level than participants in the neutral and low conditions. Participants in the neutral condition began to appropriately adjust their behavior according to the type of automation error, however, participants in the low and high conditions did not. These findings have implications for how expectations are managed in future human-automation research.

Benefits and Privacy Concerns of a Home Equipped with a Visual Sensing System: A Perspective from Older Adults

Monitoring technology has the potential to allow older adults to remain in their homes longer than may otherwise be possible. However, often this monitoring technology captures images which may cause privacy concerns, especially when these images are captured in a home environment. We used Likert scales within a structured interview to investigate privacy concerns in an aware or smart home environment. Specifically, we were interested in how the type of image that was captured and the level of functioning of the person being monitored affected privacy concerns in a home environment. The data suggest that both device type as well as level of functioning affect privacy concerns in a variety of situations, providing the first evidence that certain privacy concerns are not independent of situation variables.

Age-Related Differences in Learning Incidental Environmental Information

Incidental environmental information is consistent, potentially beneficial, information that is not necessary for successful task performance (i.e., is seemingly unrelated to the task). In the present study, older and younger participants searched for target letters among distractor letters both of which were laid upon color environments, such that certain color environments predictively correlated with target letter location at varying degrees of consistency. Neither group could express verbal knowledge of the pattern of the environmental information although younger but not older adults showed improved performance in conditions where incidental information cued target location. The findings suggest that younger adults can benefit from incidental environmental information even when they cannot express that it is present in a task but that older adults may need additional cues to benefit from the information.

How Effective Feedback for Training Depends on Learner Resources and Task Demands

Systems now may collect almost unlimited amounts of data on performance during learning. However, it is critical to ensure appropriate data are presented properly to the human to aid learning of a system. At the present time, extensive literature exists on training, but there is no agreed upon method of choosing exactly the data to present as feedback during training. This uncertainty is due to the lack of underlying principles for making feedback effective. This paper presents a formulation of feedback principles based on an understanding of the processing demands on the human operator. We explain how variables such as amount of structure and support in feedback interact with the human operator and the task to be learned. With this knowledge, designers may choose suitable feedback for training.

Online Library Catalogs: Age-Related Differences in Query Construction and Error Recovery

Online library catalogs have become pervasive in today's library. Unfortunately, these systems have been developed by computer programmers or librarians with little analysis of user behavior on the system. The present study compared the search performance of younger and older adults with general computer experience who were novice online catalog users on a set of ten search tasks of varying difficulty. This study examined types of errors made by novice users in database query construction and subsequent error recovery. Younger adults achieved a higher overall success rate than did older adults and were more efficient in performing these searches. Older adults made more query construction errors and recovered from them less efficiently than did younger adults. These data have important implications for identifying the specific needs, limitations, and capabilities of online library catalog users and the design of online library catalog systems for adults of differing ages.

Type of Automation Failure: The Effects on Trust and Reliance in Automation

Past automation research has focused primarily on machine-related factors (e.g., automation reliability) and human-related factors (e.g., accountability). Other machine-related factors such as type of automation errors, misses or false alarms, have been noticeably overlooked. These two automation errors correspond to potential operator errors, omission (misses) and commission (false alarms), which have proven to directly affect operators' trust in automation. This proposed research will examine how automation-error-type affects operator trust and begin to develop baseline trust measures as they relate to error type and participant age. It is expected that participants presented with more automation false alarms than misses will experience a larger degradation of subjective trust than those presented with equal numbers of false alarms and misses or more automation misses than false alarms.

Effectiveness of Audio and Visual Training Presentation Modes for Glucometer Calibration

This experiment investigated whether different presentation modes of instructional materials are differentially effective for older and younger adults learning to calibrate a glucometer. Glucometers are complex and require serial, sequential steps to calibrate them successfully. Some previous studies have failed to find a difference for older adults between instructions presented via audio and instructions presented with both audio and video (e.g. Stine, Wingfield & Myers, 1990); others have even found audio superior to video for presentation of instructions (Meline, 1976; Hale, 1998). In the current study, 12 older and 12 younger adults each received one type of training (audio or audio plus video) then were instructed to calibrate the glucometer using the information they received in the training. Overall, the presentation mode the groups received did affect their performance when later using the device, showing that for complex, sequential, spatial tasks, the addition of video to audio instructions improves performance for both younger and older adults.

Reliance on Automation as a Function of Expectation of Reliability, Cost of Verification, and Age

The influence of trust on automation reliance has been examined during interaction with the automation, but little attention has been paid to individuals' initial expectation of automation reliability as it affects future reliance, especially when the cost of not relying on automation is known in advance. Additionally, whereas automation may help to improve the lives of older adults, their expectations of automation reliability have not been thoroughly considered. In this study, 16 older adults and 16 younger adults were asked about their expectation of the reliability of an automated counting aid and half were told that they would lose points for verifying the automation. Subsequent reliance on the decision aid was recorded. The results indicated that neither age nor the cost of verification appears to have an effect on reliability expectancy. Furthermore, predictions of reliability had a negative correlation to reliance. The findings suggest that individuals develop expectations of automation over the course of experience and interaction with automation.

The Use of Communication Technologies by Older Adults: Exploring the Benefits from the User's Perspective

The use of advanced communication media may enhance the social networks of older adults. Although many older adults are open to new technology, there are still barriers that keep them from learning and using media such as e-mail and the Internet. Besides lacking skills, the lack of perceived advantages, or benefits, may also explain their reluctance. The goal of the present study was to investigate perceived context-related benefits of communication methods by older adults. Forty-eight independently living older adults in the age range of 65-80 years, 24 e-mail users and 24 non-users, participated in a focus group discussion of different communication scenarios. A systematic analysis of their comments and statements showed the relevance of perceived context-related benefit as a motivational factor for using or not using a medium. An implication of these results may be that training the skills to handle a new technology should also involve providing information about its specific benefits, from the user's perspective.

Understanding Age-Related Differences in the Perception and Comprehension of Symbolic Warning Information

The older segment of the population is living longer and remaining active after retirement. Consequently, many older adults are continuing to use common household products that may be associated with potentially serious hazards. Warning information accompanying these products, particularly those warnings in symbolic format, may not effectively convey their intended messages if they are difficult to interpret. In this study, survey data regarding symbol recognition, perception, and comprehension were collected from 865 individuals ranging in age from 17 to 91. The data indicate that older adults poorly comprehend a number of different warning symbols, despite believing symbols to be very helpful when interpreting warning information on products. Furthermore, symbol comprehension was not related to symbol recognition in older adults, suggesting that poor comprehension by this age group cannot be explained simply by low recognition levels. This paper discusses symbol perception, recognition, and comprehension, focusing on the importance of understanding age-related issues when designing warning systems.

Age-Related Effects of Training on Developing a System Representation

Technology varies in complexity and requires different types of training for proper use. The present study focuses on the design of training materials to facilitate the development of a system representation of a complex task which may improve product usage. Previous research suggests that understanding the structure, or representation, of a complex system may help in performing infrequent tasks and troubleshooting system failures. The type of training participants receive may facilitate the development of task components necessary to enhance the skills needed for navigation which includes understanding the system representation. The current study examines two questions 1) does the type of training received affect the development of a system representation? and 2) are there age-related differences in the training effects? The discussion of the results will focus on training and age differences on the assessment measures which assess different aspects of learning.

Getting clearer on overdiagnosis

Overdiagnosis refers to diagnosis that does not benefit patients because the diagnosed condition is not a harmful disease in those individuals. Overdiagnosis has been identified as a problem in cancer screening, diseases such as chronic kidney disease and diabetes, and a range of mental illnesses including depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In this paper, we describe overdiagnosis, investigate reasons why it occurs, and propose two different types. Misclassification overdiagnosis arises because the diagnostic threshold for the disease in question has been set at a level where many people without harmful disease are nonetheless diagnosed. We illustrate misclassification overdiagnosis using the example of chronic kidney disease. Misclassification occurs in diseases diagnosed using biomarkers or based on patient reported phenomena. Maldetection overdiagnosis arises because, at the time the diagnosis is made and despite the presence of a 'gold standard' diagnostic test, it is not possible to discriminate between harmful and non-harmful cases of the index disease. We illustrate maldetection overdiagnosis using the example of thyroid cancer. While there is some overlap between misclassification and maldetection overdiagnosis, this conceptual analysis helps to clarify the phenomenon of overdiagnosis and is a necessary first step in developing strategies to address the problem.

Smoke and mirrors: unanswered questions and misleading statements obscure the truth about organ sources in China

This response refutes the claim made in a recent article that organs for transplantation in China will no longer be sourced from executed prisoners. We identify ongoing ethical problems due to the lack of transparent data on current numbers of transplants in China; implausible and conflicting claims about voluntary donations; and obfuscation about who counts as a voluntary donor. The big unanswered question in Chinese transplant ethics is the source of organs, and until there is an open and independently audited system in China, legitimate concerns remain about organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience.

Do you Know How Old your Participants Are?

Research studies that fail to recognize the importance of participant age classifications might lead to erroneous conclusions about user behavior.

Everyday Products: Easy to Use … or Not?

More proof that human factors/ergonomics test and evaluation should be applied to even the simplest, most commonly used products.

Psychology and Aging: Enhancing the Lives of an Aging Population

A pressing need for upcoming decades is ensuring that older adults, who constitute an increasing percentage of the population, are able to function independently and maintain an acceptable quality of life. One important concern is the usability of new technologies. Unfortunately, the science that could direct proper design and implementation of current and future technological advancement is underdeveloped and less mature than the engineering that supports technological advancement. We review data documenting age-related usability issues and how psychological science can remedy such problems. We also outline how training principles can be applied to older adults. We conclude that psychological science has much to contribute to the goal of enhancing the lives of older adults.

Predicting Older Adults' Perceptions about a Computer System Designed for Seniors

PURPOSE

Although computer technology may be particularly useful for older adults (e.g., for communication, information access), they have been slower adopters than their younger counterparts. Perceptions about computers such as perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use can pose barriers to acceptance and universal access [1]. Therefore, understanding the precursors to these perceptions for older adult non-computer users may provide insight into the reasons for their non-adoption.

METHODS

We examined the relationship between perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of a computer interface designed for older users and demographic, technology experience, cognitive abilities, personality, and attitudinal variables in a sample of 300 non-computer using adults between the ages of 64 and 98, selected for being at high risk for social isolation.

RESULTS

The strongest correlates of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were: technology experience, personality dimensions of agreeableness and openness to experience, and attitudes. The emotional stability personality dimension was significantly correlated with perceived ease of use but not perceived usefulness. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that attitudes (i.e., self-efficacy, comfort, interest) remained predictive of perceptions of usefulness and ease of use when technology experience and personality variables were accounted for.

CONCLUSION

Given that attitudes are more malleable than other variables, such as demographic and cognitive abilities, these findings highlight the potential to increase technology acceptance through positive experiences, appropriate training, and educational campaigns about the benefits of computers and other technologies.

The Effect of Incorrect Reliability Information on Expectations, Perceptions, and Use of Automation

OBJECTIVE

We examined how providing artificially high or low statements about automation reliability affected expectations, perceptions, and use of automation over time.

BACKGROUND

One common method of introducing automation is providing explicit statements about the automation's capabilities. Research is needed to understand how expectations from such introductions affect perceptions and use of automation.

METHOD

Explicit-statement introductions were manipulated to set higher-than (90%), same-as (75%), or lower-than (60%) levels of expectations in a dual-task scenario with 75% reliable automation. Two experiments were conducted to assess expectations, perceptions, compliance, reliance, and task performance over (a) 2 days and (b) 4 days.

RESULTS

The baseline assessments showed initial expectations of automation reliability matched introduced levels of expectation. For the duration of each experiment, the lower-than groups' perceptions were lower than the actual automation reliability. However, the higher-than groups' perceptions were no different from actual automation reliability after Day 1 in either study. There were few differences between groups for automation use, which generally stayed the same or increased with experience using the system.

CONCLUSION

Introductory statements describing artificially low automation reliability have a long-lasting impact on perceptions about automation performance. Statements including incorrect automation reliability do not appear to affect use of automation.

APPLICATION

Introductions should be designed according to desired outcomes for expectations, perceptions, and use of the automation. Low expectations have long-lasting effects.