Supporting System-Centered View of Operators Through Ecological
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Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting http://pro.sagepub.com/ Supporting System-Centered View of Operators Through Ecological Interface Design: Two Experiments on Human-Centered Automation Hiroshi Furukawa and Raja Parasuraman Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting 2003 47: 567 DOI: 10.1177/154193120304700366 The online version of this article can be found at: http://pro.sagepub.com/content/47/3/567 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Additional services and information for Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting can be found at: Email Alerts: http://pro.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://pro.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://pro.sagepub.com/content/47/3/567.refs.html >> Version of Record - Oct 1, 2003 What is This? Downloaded from pro.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO on August 18, 2014 PROCEEDINGS of the HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS SOCIETY 47th ANNUAL MEETING—2003 567 SUPPORTING SYSTEM-CENTERED VIEW OF OPERATORS THROUGH ECOLOGICAL INTERFACE DESIGN: TWO EXPERIMENTS ON HUMAN-CENTERED AUTOMATION Hiroshi Furukawa Raja Parasuraman University of Tsukuba The Catholic University of America Tsukuba, Japan Washington DC, USA The Catholic University of America Washington DC, USA Human operators faced with an unexpected situation while controlling a complex system can take effective action if they are provided a system-centered view based on Ecological Interface Design (EID). To date there is only limited empirical support for the efficacy of EID in enhancing human-automation interaction. This paper presents results from two studies of EID in human-automation interaction, drawn fiom different domains, flight simulation and process control. In Experiment 1, use of an integrated display with an emergent perceptual feature was found to eliminate the automation complacency effect in monitoring for engine system malfunctions during a flight simulation task. In Experiment 2, a display with a multi-level representation of the intention of the automated controllers in a process control system was found to improve human-automation collaboration. These studies show that explicit visualization of the functional structure of a human-automation system in the interface supports the system-centered view in operators, thereby enhancing system performance. INTRODUCTION accomplish predefrned tasks. In this analysis, situations and the corresponding procedures are predefined, so that The concept of human-centered automation proposes that information can be selected efficiently, and HMI design is humans remain in command over automated sub-systems arranged to support operators appropriately in those situations. because they bear the ultimate responsibility for safety, However, this specificity may not promote comprehension of especially in situations that the automation cannot handle states by operators in unanticipated situations. (Billings, 1997, Sheridan, 2002). Humans can and do take System-centered work analysis shows the functional prompt measures under such circumstances, but only if they structure of work in the system. The analysis is based on the comprehend the state of the system and have sufficient time Abstraction-Decomposition Space (ADS) concept proposed by (Endsley, 1995). The time necessary for human operators Rasmussen (1986), which is also known as the Abstraction includes (at least) the time for detecting failures in the Hierarchy. ADS is a hierarchical representation of relations automated controllers, comprehending the system states, and between a top goal and physical components with multiple making decisions and planning actions. A technology-centered viewpoints, such as abstraction and aggregation. In this approach to the design of automation, however, typically fails analysis, the HMI is designed to support operators to have a to cover unanticipated situations, and ignores the importance system-centered view. A design concept based on the ADS is of supporting correct comprehension of system states and Ecological Interface Design (EID) (Vicente and Rasmussen, behaviors by human operators (Parasuraman and Riley, 1997; 1990, 1992), in which the ADS of a target system, i.e., the Parasuraman, Sheridan, and Wickens, 2000). means-end relations of the work, is represented to allow How can the human-centered automation concept be operators to comprehend the ADS intuitively. This can be implemented to foster greater system comprehension? Human thought of as the externalization of the operator's mental operators have some limitations in understanding complex model of the system onto the HMI (Rasmussen and Pejtersen, system states. Automation is typically fast and precise and can 1995). The HMI is also designed to support skill-, rule- and display large amounts of complex information, which can knowledge-based behaviors (Rasmussen, 1986). overwhelm the operator at exactly the worst time, i.e., in an Vicente (2002) proposed the need for additional empirical emergency condition. Furthermore, if operators exhibit studies to examine the effectiveness of the EID concept. This over-reliance on automation, they may take more time to paper presents results from two experiments drawn from detect system malfimctions than without automation different domains, flight simulation and process control, which (Parasuraman, Molloy, and Singh, 1993). Thus, the examined EID in human-automation interaction. Experiment 1 human-machine interface (HMI) must support operators to investigated the effects of an integrated display on monitoring allow better comprehension of system and automation states. for engine malfunctions in a flight simulation task. Experiment HMI design can be informed by task analysis, of which 2 examined the effects of multi-level representation of two major types are task-centered and system-centered work intention of automated controllers based on ADS in a process analysis (Miller and Vicente, 200 1). Task-centered analysis control task. shows the tasks that can be or should be done for work involving a given system in a particular situation. An assumption of the analysis technique is that the operator is responsible for performing the actions necessary to Downloaded from pro.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO on August 18, 2014 568 PROCEEDINGS of the HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS SOCIETY 47th ANNUAL MEETING—2003 EXPERIMENT 1 The tasks of the operators in this study were the detection of failures and state comprehension in a simulation of an aviation environment. Cockpit automation has been a fertile area for investigation of human-automation coordination problems (Billlings, 1997; Parasuraman and Byme, 2003; Sarter, Billings, and Woods, 1997). One of the problems that has been investigated is pilot over-reliance on automation designed to monitor the status of aircraft. systems, so that when occasional failures occur, they are less likely to detect the failure (or NORMAL WARNING FAULT slowed in responding) compared to when they perform the task manually (Parasuraman et al., 1993). This automation Figure 1: The integrated display based on the EMACS. complacency effect reflects an attention allocation policy away fiom the automated task to the other tasks that the operator has Results to perform simultaneously (Moray and Inagaki, 2000; Parasuraman et al., 1993). Hence, one way to reduce the effect There were no differences in pilot performance on the would be to use an integrated display based on EID principles engine-systems task between the integrated and non-integrated to display the engine system state, both under normal display conditions when there were no failures in automation conditions and when malfunctions occur. control. This indicates that interfaces based on EID do not The experiment tested the hypothesis that the visual necessarily incur a performance cost under routine, normal attentional demands of monitoring an integrated display would conditions. When the automation failed to detect and be reduced compared to a non-integrated display (Bennett and diagnose malfunctions, however, pilot monitoring Flach, 1992). The design was similar to that of Molloy and performance (detection and diagnosis rates) was significantly Parasuraman (1994), except that eye movements were better for the integrated EMACS display than for the standard, recorded in order to evaluate the attention allocation strategies non-integrated EICAS display (p<.O 1). Moreover the and that pilots instead of students were used as participants. automation complacency effect -- the reduction in performance for automated compared to manual monitoring -- Method was eliminated with the integrated display. As Figure 2 shows, there was a significant reduction in the system malfunction 12 general aviation pilots aged 23-35 years performed the rate between manual and automation control for the Multi-Attribute Task (MAT) involving the following non-integrated display (p<.OO 1). For the integrated display, sub-tasks: a manual, two-dimensional compensatory tracking however, the detection rate was relatively high and was not task, a manual resource management task requiring balancing significantly different between the two modes of control. of the fuel tanks of the aircraft, and an automated engine-systems-failure detection task. The interface used to Cost of Automation display