Applied Cognitive Psychology

Introductory Lecture

Course outline:

Two lectures per week.

Fortnightly seminars

Course requirements:

Coursework essay (1,500 words): evaluate a journal article

Extended essay (3,000 words): evaluate two journal articles (compare and contrast)

10 minute presentation: evaluate a journal article

READ THE COURSE DOCUMENTATION:

www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/grahamh/AppCogWeb/teaching08-ACP.html

A brief selective history of applied cognitive psychology:

Ergonomics - study of man-machine interface

Criminological psychology - application of psychological research to legal and criminological issues

The development of ergonomics:

Core disciplines - psychology and physiology

1940's: WW2 - studies of vigilance in radar operators, pilot fatigue, gunner targeting performance, control/display compatibility.

UK: Interdisciplinary groups at Admiralty, and MRC Applied Psychology Unit Cambridge, 1944 (Mackworth, Craik, Bartlett, Broadbent).

1940's, US: Fitts studies of pilot error, pilot's eye-movements.

1947: start of U.S. Human Factors Society.

1949: start of U.K. Ergonomics Society.

Grether (1949):

Frequent crashes occur due to altimeter mis-readings.

Experiments to objectively evaluate speed and accuracy of altimeter readings.

Big differences between altimeters :

3-point altimeter often led to 1,000 - feet underestimation of height.

Reading speed and accuracy for different altimeter designs (Grether, 1949)

Fitts and Jones (1947):

50% of pilot errors in operating aircraft controls involved using the wrong one.

Aircraft Position of Control

left centre right

B-25 throttle prop mixture

C-47 prop throttle mixture

C-82 mixture throttle prop

Mappings between locations and functions need to be consistent and unambiguous.

WW2: in first 2 years of combat, over 2,000 multi-engine U.S. aircraft crashed because the landing gear and wing flap controls could not be discriminated from one another by location, feel, or direction of movement. Design error, not "pilot" error.

Cause 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s All

Pilot Error 41 37 29 30 31 30 33

Pilot Error 

(weather related) 11 17 15 16 19 19 16

Pilot Error

(mechanical related) 7 3 4 4 6 3 4

Total Pilot Error 59 57 48 50 56 52 53

Other Human Error 4 7 10 6 7 9 7

Weather 14 11 10 12 9 8 11

Mechanical Failure 20 19 21 21 21 25 21

 Sabotage 3 4 9 10 7 6 7

 Other Cause 0 2 2 1 1 0 1

1,843 fatal accidents involving commercial aircraft, world-wide, from 1950 - 2006 for which a specific cause is known

(PlaneCrashInfo.com)

Pilot error and accidents:

Human-computer interaction:

Late 20th century: computers restricted to specialist, highly trained operatives.

21st century: ubiquitous computing and the need to consider non-nerds (VCR's, PVR's, ATM's, internet banking, Google and email, tills, cameras, phones, cars - plus experts from other disciplines who use computers, e.g. doctors, pilots).

Forensic psychology:

19th century memory research dominated by Ebbinghaus' approach;

but criminological/forensic psychology begins, with Munsterberg's applied memory research.

Hugo Munsterberg (1863-1916)

Cesare Lombroso and “criminal anthropology”:

“A” are shoplifters,

"B" are swindlers,

"E" are murderers,

"H" are purse snatchers.

12 Boston doctors, 1894.

Left: composite of 9 criminals. Right: 5 criminals. Centre: left and right combined..

Left: composite of 12 officers. Right: 12 privates

Francis Galton’s composite technique for identifying “types”

1980's: memory in the real world; Neisser, Loftus.

21st century: DNA and the "Innocence Project" - 273 convictions overturned, over 3/4 involved mistaken identification.

Cognitive Interview techniques improve police interviewing of witnesses.

E-Fit (a facial composite system based on psychological principles) has superseded Photofit (a system that isn't).

Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) likely to be revised in accordance with BPS guidelines advocating "double blind" lineups and recording witness confidence at the time of the identification (as opposed to retrospectively).

Interplay between pure and applied psychology:

Practical benefits of applied research (improved eyewitness interviewing procedures, better computer interfaces, safer roads, safer aeroplanes).

Extends and tests theories based on "pure" research. Introduction of concepts (e.g. "mental workload" and situational awareness") into psychology from workplace.

Broadbent (1971): "applied psychology is the best basis for a genuine theory of human nature".

Issues in applying psychology to real-world problems:

Ecological validity:

Representativeness of student participants (drug studies - chronic versus acute effects; driving behaviour; time-scales, stress and involvement in memory studies).

Ethical issues:

Informed consent may be impracticable. Exposure to risk (driving research) means use of simulators with attendant loss of validity.

Effect size:

Statistical significance versus practical significance.

Group differences are not necessarily individual differences.

Experimental rigour:

Applied research sometimes needs to use quasi-experimental designs.

Methods used in applied psychology research:

Experiments:

Not always practicable (e.g. for ethical reasons); artificiality (e.g. simulator studies), demand characteristics.

Surveys:

Problems of self-report (especially for illegal activities), memory limitations (Chapman and Underwood 2000).

Statistical analyses of accident statistics, etc.:

Selection bias, unreliability, relatively small sample size (e.g. for mobile phone-related accidents, drugged driving, etc.), exposure issues, usually many factors involved.

Conclusions:

Application of psychology to real-world problems has a long and fruitful history.

More important than ever before (increasing technological complexity, ageing population).

Need better communication of research findings to relevant audiences.

Designers, engineers, lawyers, judges etc. often do not fully appreciate the potential importance of cognitive psychology for their disciplines.

Munsterberg:

" The progress of experimental psychology makes it an absurd incongruity that the State should ... never ask the psychological expert to determine the value of that factor which becomes most influential - the mind of the witness. The demand that the memory of the witness should be tested with the methods of modern psychology has been raised sometimes, but it seems necessary to add that the study of his perceptive judgment will have to find its way into the court-room, too".

Beevis and Slade (2003):

There is increasing demand for cost-benefit data to justify using ergonomists; but relatively few demonstrations of quantitative benefits from using ergonomists (e.g. increased productivity, reduced accidents).

"It seems unnecessary that the value to a design team of a specialist in human performance should be evaluated on a financial basis when the advice of specialists in electrical, mechanical, metallurgical or dynamic performance is accepted as natural in order to achieve a given specification. The education of designers and engineers to think of seeking the advice of an ergonomist as naturally as they would that of a specialist in an engineering discipline would do much to change current attitudes and would do away with the defensive approach implicit in talk of the financial justification of ergonomic recommendations".