ENGINEERING

PSYCHOLOGY
Subdiscipline of psychology

THE HUMAN WORK ABOVE THE

NECK.
 The focus of Engineering Psychology
tends to be on performance in the
workplace, hence characterizing its close
linkage back to ergonomics, the study of
work, and particularly cognitive
ergonomics.

— Wickens, C. et al. (2013)

Source: Wickens, C.D., Hollands, J.G., Banbury, S., Parasuraman, R.

(2013). Engineering Psychology and Human Performance 4th
Edition. Pearson: New Jersey.
 HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS

The scientific study of human characteristics, capabilities, and limitations applied to the design of
equipment, workplaces, environments, jobs, instructions, interfaces, systems, and processes.

Safety
Productivity
Comfort
Source: Adapted from the Lecture Notes in IE 311 – Psychological Foundations and Advanced Topics in Human Factors and Ergonomics of Prof. Yogi Tri
Prasetyo, Ph.D., Department of Industrial Engineering, Mapua University
 ENGINEERING PSYCHOLOGY

▪ Typically measures of the “big three”.

SPEED ACCURACY ATTENTIONAL DEMAND

Engineering psychologists are quite interested in many cognitive phenomena that are not directly
reflected in performance, such as the degree of learning or memory of a concept, the quality of
mental model, situation awareness, overconfidence in a decision.
Source: Adapted from the Lecture Notes in IE 311 – Psychological Foundations and Advanced Topics in Human Factors and Ergonomics of Prof. Yogi Tri
Prasetyo, Ph.D., Department of Industrial Engineering, Mapua University
 4

• Systematic application of relevant information to design and

Human Factors Research •
evaluation of things
All the information come from: observation & experiment
Methodologies • Observation: observe system in natural state
• Experiment: manipulate system and observe outcomes
WHAT IS AN INFORMATION?

▪ Information is that which informs, i.e. that from which data can be derived.
▪ Information is conveyed either as a content of a message or through direct or indirect observation
of something.

Types of Information
▪ Quantitative (e.g. 100% charged, 63% used)
▪ Qualitative (e.g. fully charged, partially charged)
▪ Status (normal, abnormal)
▪ Warning (abnormal - - potentially dangerous)
▪ Representational (e.g. pictures, diagrams, charts)
▪ Identification (e.g. labels, proofs)

This material is used only for UST IE - IE 2520: Ergonomics 2. No part of this material shall be reproduced nor translated in any form or by any means, including photocopying, scanning, recording, or re-posting, without obtaining
written permission from the resource person. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution of this material is illegal and tantamount to Intellectual Property Rights Infringement.
Prepared by: ENGR. YOSHIKI B. KURATA, MSc., CIE
INFORMATION THEORY

▪ Information Theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal
processing operations such as compressing data.

▪ Information Theory draws knowledge from statistical inference, natural language processing and
other forms of data analysis.

This material is used only for UST IE - IE 2520: Ergonomics 2. No part of this material shall be reproduced nor translated in any form or by any means, including photocopying, scanning, recording, or re-posting, without obtaining
written permission from the resource person. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution of this material is illegal and tantamount to Intellectual Property Rights Infringement.
Prepared by: ENGR. YOSHIKI B. KURATA, MSc., CIE
 HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL

Source: Adapted from the Lecture Notes in IE 311 – Psychological Foundations and Advanced Topics in Human Factors and Ergonomics of Prof. Yogi Tri
Prasetyo, Ph.D., Department of Industrial Engineering, Mapua University
HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL

SYSTEM ENVIRONMENT

Start by an environmental input or operator’s voluntary intention to act.

HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL

SENSORY PROCESSING

Short-term sensory store: All sensory systems have an associated STSS to prolong the representation of the raw
material for 0.5sec or 2-4 sec. STSS permits environmental information to be preserved temporarily and dealt with later.
 HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL

▪ Unfamiliar circumstances remove the

ability to use past experiences.
▪ Poor sensory quality forces the perceiver
to use top-down expectancies.
Perception: ▪ If such expectancies are wrong,
(1) proceeds automatically and rapidly perceptual errors can occur.
(2) driven both by sensory input (bottom-up processing) or by inputs from
long-term memory about what events are expected.
Source: Adapted from the Lecture Notes in IE 311 – Psychological Foundations and Advanced Topics in Human Factors and Ergonomics of Prof. Yogi Tri
Prasetyo, Ph.D., Department of Industrial Engineering, Mapua University
 HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL

Bottom - up processing refers

to processing sensory
information as it is coming in. In
other words, if a random picture
is flashed on the screen, your
eyes detect the features, your
brain pieces it together, and you
perceive a picture.

What you see is based only on

the sensory information coming
in. Bottom-up refers to the way it
is built up from the smallest
pieces of sensory information.

Source: Adapted from the Lecture Notes in IE 311 – Psychological Foundations and Advanced Topics in Human Factors and Ergonomics of Prof. Yogi Tri
Prasetyo, Ph.D., Department of Industrial Engineering, Mapua University
 HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL

Top - down processing, on the

other hand, refers to perception
that is driven by cognition. Your
brain applies what it knows and
what it expects to perceive and
fills in the blanks, so to speak.

Source: Adapted from the Lecture Notes in IE 311 – Psychological Foundations and Advanced Topics in Human Factors and Ergonomics of Prof. Yogi Tri
Prasetyo, Ph.D., Department of Industrial Engineering, Mapua University
BOTTOM-UP PROCESSING OR TOP-DOWN PROCESSING?

(1) (2)
BOTTOM-UP PROCESSING OR TOP-DOWN PROCESSING?

Seen alone, your brain engages in bottom-up

processing. There are two thick vertical lines
and three thin horizontal lines. There is no
context to give it a specific meaning, so there is
no top-down processing involved.

This material is used only for UST IE - IE 2520: Ergonomics 2. No part of this material shall be reproduced nor translated in any form or by any means, including photocopying, scanning, recording, or re-posting, without obtaining
written permission from the resource person. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution of this material is illegal and tantamount to Intellectual Property Rights Infringement.
Prepared by: ENGR. YOSHIKI B. KURATA, MSc., CIE
BOTTOM-UP PROCESSING OR TOP-DOWN PROCESSING?

Surrounded by sequential letters, your brain

expects the shape to be a letter and to complete
the sequence. In that context, you perceive the
lines to form the shape of the letter “B.”
Surrounded by numbers, the same shape now
looks like the number “13.” When given a
context, your perception is driven by your
cognitive expectations. Now you are processing
the shape in a top-down fashion.

This material is used only for UST IE - IE 2520: Ergonomics 2. No part of this material shall be reproduced nor translated in any form or by any means, including photocopying, scanning, recording, or re-posting, without obtaining
written permission from the resource person. Unauthorized reproduction and distribution of this material is illegal and tantamount to Intellectual Property Rights Infringement.
Prepared by: ENGR. YOSHIKI B. KURATA, MSc., CIE
HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING

COGNITION AND MEMORY

▪ Cognition operations require greater time, mental effort, or attention through rehearsal, reasoning, or image
processing using working memory.
▪ We all have memories and one way to understand them is to use them under controlled conditions.
HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING

RESPONSE SELECTION AND EXECUTION

▪ Understanding of a situation, achieved through perception and augmented by cognitive transformations, often
triggers an action. Take note that response selection is different from its execution.
▪ Reaction Time = (Hick-Hyman Law) + Movement Time (Fitts’ Law)
HUMAN INFORMATION PROCESSING

FEEDBACK

▪ Achieve intended goal and critical for real world task, driving, walking, navigating.
How to differentiate between signal and noise?
▪ Delay of the system in responding to human actions.
SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY

▪ Signal detection theory describes decisions made under uncertainty.

▪ It distinguishes between different types of errors or successes, and describes the tradeoffs between
them.
PARTS OF THE SIGNAL DETECTION

Stimulus: sensory input(s)

Signal: stimulus having a special pattern
Noise: Obscuring stimuli
Task: Report “yes” when signal present, otherwise “no”

Example: steam power plant

task: detect boiler leak
stimulus: sound pressure level (SPL)
signal: higher than normal SPL
SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY

P (stimulus intensity = x)

noise only

X (decibels)
SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY

P (stimulus intensity = x)

d’

noise only signal + noise

X (decibels)
SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY

criterion
P (stimulus intensity = x) NO YES

d’

noise only signal + noise

X (decibels)
SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY

criterion
P (stimulus intensity = x) NO YES

d’

noise only signal + noise

P(quiet)

X (decibels)
P(false alarm)
SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY

criterion
P (stimulus intensity = x) NO YES

d’

noise only signal + noise

P(hit)

P(miss)

X (decibels)
SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY APPLICATIONS
SIGNAL DETECTION THEORY APPLICATIONS