Misconceptions of human factors concepts

Think Human: exploring the exhibition of ergonomics to enhance education and engagement: establishing the CIEHF 75th anniversary exhibition

The field of ergonomics and human factors (E/HF) has an urgent need for increased uptake of specialists to meet the growing demands of the sector and related industries employing ergonomists. In the absence of E/HF being part of the school curriculum, one way of achieving this is through public engagement activities. Specialists in E/HF are motivated by understanding people and interactions, inherent qualities in outreach and engagement, so we are well placed to practice what we preach by understanding our own users, the consumers of our science. In this paper, we present a curriculum map and museum exhibition model as part of ongoing work to develop a public exhibition, called 'Think Human', hosted at the Museum of Making in Derby, England, from September 2024, as part of ongoing work in timely celebration of the 75th anniversary of the UK's Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF).

Automation complacency on the road

Given that automation complacency, a hitherto controversial concept, is already used to blame and punish human drivers in current accident investigations and courts, it is essential to map complacency research in driving automation and determine whether current research can support its legitimate usage in these practical fields. Here, we reviewed its status quo in the domain and conducted a thematic analysis. We then discussed five fundamental challenges that might undermine its scientific legitimation: conceptual confusion exists in whether it is an individual versus systems problem; uncertainties exist in current evidence of complacency; valid measures specific to complacency are lacking; short-term laboratory experiments cannot address the long-term nature of complacency and thus their findings may lack external validity; and no effective interventions directly target complacency prevention. The Human Factors/Ergonomics community has a responsibility to minimise its usage and defend human drivers who rely on automation that is far from perfect.Practitioner summary: Human drivers are accused of complacency and overreliance on driving automation in accident investigations and courts. Our review work shows that current academic research in the driving automation domain cannot support its legitimate usage in these practical fields. Its misuse will create a new form of consumer harms.

Attributions of accidents to "human error" in news stories: Effects on perceived culpability, perceived preventability, and perceived need for punishment

Attributions of the causes of accidents to human error are problematically reductive, yet such attributions persist in media coverage. Few experiments have examined how human error attributions affect people's perceptions. An experiment compared attributions of accidents to "human error" versus other causes ("mechanical failure," "technical error," or "computer error"). Participants (N = 971) from an online sample read one of 50 real news excerpts describing accidents from a broad array of domains (e.g., aviation, automobiles, manufacturing, and infrastructure, among others). Stories kept the same or similar details, with only the causal attribution altered to compare human error to other causes. With human error attributions, participants were in greater agreement with the statement that an individual deserved to be punished for the accident and in less agreement that an organization or company was responsible for the accident. People also perceived past human error accidents to have been more preventable, although ratings of prospective preventability were not significantly different for human error versus other attributions. The idiosyncratic details of particular accidents contributed more variance to perceptions than the causal attribution. The same pattern of results was replicated in a second experiment (N = 1195), and new analyses found no evidence that the relationship between causal attributions and perceptions was moderated by the personal relevance of the news story. Our findings suggested that, when an accident is attributed to human error in media, the public may be less likely to expect examination or mitigation of systemic shortcomings (e.g., in design, organizational practices, etc.) that precipitate accidents.