Ergonomics

Question 1

What are ergonomics?

Answer 1

Design of architecture, rooms, tools, furniture or gadgets etc to ensure a user doesn’t experience:
Physical discomfort eg back pain, eye strain
Cognitive discomfort eg overloading attention

Question 2

Key research

Answer 2

Drews and Doig

Question 3

Outline of Drews and Doig’s experiment

Answer 3

Design and evaluate a new screen in intensive care units displaying patient’s vitals to help nurses quickly and accurately detect a patient’s condition compared to traditional ICU screens

Question 4

Traditional ICU displays in Drews and Doig’s study

Answer 4

Information for patients immediate blood pressure, heart rate and oxygenation of blood is in numerical display
To access data showing trend of this info, a single key press is required

Question 5

New CVS display design in Drews and Doig’s study

Answer 5

Graphical displays of vitals: one showing trend of vitals over 8 hours
and one known as current state object (CSO) which is another graph display of maximum/minimum vital readings over past 1 hour
Numerical displays

Question 6

‘Current state object’ in Drews and Doig’s study

Answer 6

Grey rectangle’s boundaries show normal highest/lowest HR + BP
Solid White rectangle to show max/min patients vitals over 1 hour
Coloured (based on oxygen saturation) rectangle to show current vital reading

Question 7

Does the new CVS display require pressing any key?

Answer 7

No all information is presented on one screen: graphical trend etc

Question 8

Sample in Drews and Doig’s study

Answer 8

42 nurses with min 1 year working in ICU
More women than men
Large age range

Question 9

Sample in Drews and Doig’s study

Answer 9

42 nurses with min 1 year working in ICU
More women than men
Large age range

Question 10

Main procedure of Drews and Doig

Answer 10

Present patients with 4 fake scenarios of patients vitals eg septic shock
Half presented via traditional display, half on new display
Have 5 mins to verbalise assessment of patient data and make decision

Question 11

Main procedure of Drews and Doig

Answer 11

Present patients with 4 fake scenarios of patients vitals eg septic shock
Half presented via traditional display, half on new display
Have 5 mins to verbalise assessment of patient data and make decision

Question 12

IV of Drews and Doig?

Answer 12

Data displayed on traditional ICU display
Or on new display

Question 13

Dependent variable of Drews and Doig

Answer 13

Time taken for nurse to verbalise assessment
Accuracy of nurse’s assessment
Nurse’s mental demand when completing task

Question 14

How did we measure the nurse’s mental demand required when completing the tasks in Drews and Doig’s study?

Answer 14

Give a survey to the nurses after completing the task

Question 15

Results in Drews and Doig for identifying septic shock?

Answer 15

48% quicker response rate when given new display compared to trad display
1/3 more accurate using new display relative to trad display

Question 16

Results in Drews and Doig for mental demand of nurses?

Answer 16

Significantly lower mental demand using graphical, new display relative to trad display

Question 17

Conclusion of Drews and Doig?

Answer 17

Presenting nurses with patients vitals in graphical trend vs numerical data leads to quicker and more accurate diagnosis

Question 18

Additional studies

Answer 18

Miller - short term memory and chunking
The Hawthorne studies
Higuer-Trujillo - colour of class walls
Brown and Poulton - secondary task performance

Question 19

Miller’s theory on short term memory

Answer 19

Previous research said STM exists as the first stage in storing long term memory
Miller days people can hold from 5 to 9 pieces of info in STM

Question 20

Miller’s theory on chunking

Answer 20

If we chunk info into units and related to something meaningful to us we can remember large amounts of info in the 7 pieces

Question 21

Who did the Hawthorne studies?

Answer 21

Mayo NOT HAWTHORNE

Question 22

Hawthorne studies aim

Answer 22

Investigate impact of physical environment on productivity of workers at Hawthorne factory plant of electric company that makes lightbulbs
By changing light level

Question 23

Results of Hawthorne studies

Answer 23

Any change in light levels lead to increased productivity of factory workers because they knew they were being observed

Question 24

Hawthorne effect

Answer 24

When people change their behaviour from their naturalistic behaviour because they are aware they are being observed

Question 25

Higuera-Trujillo aim

Answer 25

Investigate the affect of colour of classroom walls on memory and attention using VR classroom

Question 26

Higuera-Trujillo sample

Answer 26

80 Spanish Uni students half male, half female

Question 27

Higuera-Trujillo procedure

Answer 27

Have Ps wear VR headset in class where they complete a memory and cognitive task, manipulating colour of walls each time to see which colour had best performance

Question 28

Best colour walls, performance wise in Higuera-Trujillo

Answer 28

Purple

Question 29

What is cognitive overload theory?

Answer 29

The idea that there is a limit on the number of items in the environment that can be paid attention to, this creates cognitive demand

Question 30

How can we measure cognitive overload?

Answer 30

Secondary task performance, eg how well someone performs on a secondary task while completing a primary task We can measure the spare capacity someone has left over in terms of how well they do on the primary task

Question 31

Who used secondary task performance to measure cognitive overload?

Answer 31

Brown and Poulton

Question 32

Brown and Poulton’s primary task

Answer 32

Have participants drive a car in a crowded car park with many cognitive outputs vs one with few (quiet residential area) this is the primary task of driving

Question 33

Brown and Poulton secondary task

Answer 33

Listen to tape and identify the numbers moving from one sequence to next

Question 34

What did brown and Poulton find out?

Answer 34

Worse performance on secondary task in the crowded shopping centre as there were more cognitive inputs so less mental capacity left over for the secondary task

Question 35

Why do we learn about cognitive overload in terms of ergonomics?

Answer 35

Design of products/rooms should focus on not overloading user with cognitive inputs: too much too pay attention to

Question 36

Why do we learn about memory in terms of ergonomics?

Answer 36

Having better short term memory storage means less mental demand thus less cognitive overload when experiencing the workplace