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Cognitive ergonomics

 

 
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Cognitive ergonomics
 
 
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Cognitive ergonomics studies cognition in work settings, in order to optimize human well-being and system performance. It is a subset of the larger field of human factors
Human factors

Human factors is a term that covers:* The science of understanding the properties of human capability .* The application of this understanding to the design and development of systems and services ....
 and ergonomics
Ergonomics

Ergonomics is the scientific discipline concerned with designing according to human needs, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance....
.

itive ergonomics or cognitive engineering is an emerging branch of ergonomics
Ergonomics

Ergonomics is the scientific discipline concerned with designing according to human needs, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance....
 that places particular emphasis on the analysis of cognitive processes – e.g., diagnosis, decision making
Decision making

Decision making can be regarded as an outcome of mental processes leading to the selection of a course of action among several alternatives. Every decision making process produces a final choice....
 and planning – required of operators in modern industries.






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Encyclopedia


Cognitive ergonomics studies cognition in work settings, in order to optimize human well-being and system performance. It is a subset of the larger field of human factors
Human factors

Human factors is a term that covers:* The science of understanding the properties of human capability .* The application of this understanding to the design and development of systems and services ....
 and ergonomics
Ergonomics

Ergonomics is the scientific discipline concerned with designing according to human needs, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance....
.

Goals

Cognitive ergonomics or cognitive engineering is an emerging branch of ergonomics
Ergonomics

Ergonomics is the scientific discipline concerned with designing according to human needs, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance....
 that places particular emphasis on the analysis of cognitive processes – e.g., diagnosis, decision making
Decision making

Decision making can be regarded as an outcome of mental processes leading to the selection of a course of action among several alternatives. Every decision making process produces a final choice....
 and planning – required of operators in modern industries. Cognitive ergonomics aim to enhance performance of cognitive tasks by means of several interventions, including:
  • user-centered design of human-machine interaction and human-computer interaction (HCI
    HCI

    HCI can mean:...
    );
  • design of information technology systems that support cognitive tasks (e.g., cognitive artifacts);
  • development of training programs;
  • work redesign to manage cognitive workload and increase human reliability
    Human reliability

    Human reliability is related to the field of human factors engineering, and refers to the reliability of humans in fields such as manufacturing, transportation, the military, or medicine....
    .


Methodology

Successful, ergonomic interventions in the area of cognitive tasks require a thorough understanding, not only of the demands of the work situation, but also of user strategies in performing cognitive tasks and of limitations in human cognition. In some cases, the artifacts or tools used to carry out a task may impose their own constraints and limitations (e.g., navigating through a large number of GUI screens); in fact tools co-determine the very nature of the task. In this sense, the analysis of cognitive tasks should examine both the interaction of users with their work setting and the user interaction with artifacts or tools; the latter is very important as modern artifacts (e.g., control panels, software, expert systems) become increasingly sophisticated. Emphasis lies on how to design human-machine interfaces and cognitive artifacts so that human performance is sustained in work environments where information may be unreliable, events may be difficult to predict, multiple simultaneous goals may be in conflict, and performance may be time constrained. Typical domains of application include process control rooms (chemical plants, air traffic), command and control centers, operating theaters and other supervisory control
Supervisory control

Supervisory control is a general term for control of many individual controller s or control loops, whether by a human or an automatic control system, although almost every real system is a combination of both....
 systems. Other types of situations, familiar but variable, are also considered as they entail performance of cognitive tasks: e.g. video recording, using an in-car GPS navigation system, etc. Approaches used include:
  • Cognitive Systems Engineering
  • Francophone Ergonomics


Relation to other disciplines

Cognitive ergonomics draws from or is related to:
  • Cognitive psychology
    Cognitive psychology

    Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language.The school of thought arising from this approach is known as cognitivism which is interested in how people mentally represent information processing....
     and cognitive science
    Cognitive science

    Cognitive science may be concisely defined as the study of the nature of intelligence. It draws on multiple empirical disciplines, including psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics, anthropology, computer science, sociology and biology....
  • Systems engineering
    Systems engineering

    Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how complex engineering projects should be designed and managed....
  • Ethnography
    Ethnography

    Ethnography is a genre of writing that uses fieldwork to provide a descriptive study of human societies. Ethnography presents the results of a holism research method founded on the idea that a system's properties cannot necessarily be accurately understood independently of each other....
     and cultural anthropology (distributed cognition
    Distributed cognition

    Distributed cognition is a theory of psychology developed in the mid 1980s by Edwin Hutchins. Using insights from sociology, cognitive science, and the psychology of Vygotsky it emphasizes the social aspects of cognition....
    )
  • Ethnomethodology
    Ethnomethodology

    What is ethnomethodology?Ethnomethodology is a sociology discipline which studies the ways in which people make sense of their world, display this understanding to others, and produce the mutually shared social order in which they live....
  • Activity theory
    Activity theory

    Activity theory is a psychological meta-theory, paradigm, or framework, with its roots in the Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky cultural-historical psychology....
  • Cognitive work analysis
  • Ecological design
    Ecological design

    Ecological design was defined by Sim Van der Ryn and Stuart Cowan as "any form of design that minimizes environmentally destructive impacts by integrating itself with living processes."...
  • Cognitive engineering
  • Mental space
    Mental space

    The Mental space is a theoretic construct proposed by Gilles Fauconnier and Armen Khederlarian corresponding to possible worlds in Philosophy. The main difference between a mental space and a possible world is that a mental space does not contain a faithful representation of reality, but an idealized cognitive model....


Related fields

  • Human-computer interaction
  • Neuroergonomics
    Neuroergonomics

    Neuroergonomics is the application of neuroscience to ergonomics. Traditional ergonomic studies have relied largely on psychological explanations of issues of human factors, such as safety, response time, and repetitive stress injuries....
  • Supervisory control
    Supervisory control

    Supervisory control is a general term for control of many individual controller s or control loops, whether by a human or an automatic control system, although almost every real system is a combination of both....


Organizations



Peer-reviewed publications



Suggested readings

  • Vicente, K. J. (1999). Cognitive Work Analysis: Toward safe, productive, and healthy computer based work. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Norman, D. A. (1993). Things that Make Us Smart. New York: Addison Wesley Company.
  • Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Hollnagel, E. (2003) (Ed.), Handbook of cognitive task design. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Kirlik, A. (2006) (Ed.). Adaptive perspectives on human-technology interaction: Methods and models for human-computer interaction and cognitive engineering. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Durso, F.T., Nickerson, R.T., Dumais, S.T., Lewandowsky, S., & Perfect, T.J. (2007) (Eds.). Handbook of applied cognition. New York, NY: Wiley.
  • Giannini,AJ & Giannini JN (1999) Cognitive workload and the organization of mental space. In Jacobs,K (Ed.) Ergonomics for Therapists: Second Edition. Boston: Butterworth, Heinemann.
ISBN 0-7506-7051-7.