Psychology 2990A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Human Factors And Ergonomics, Engineering Psychology, Product Liability

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2990A/B
• Professor: Doug Hazlewood

Document Summary

Fitting the machine to the user and fitting the user to the machine. Prologue: names and definition: other common names for the field: Engineering psychology: definition (pg 226): the science of (a) designing machines for human use and (b) determining appropriate behaviors for the efficient operation of machines. Two goals that led to development of the field. Part 1: historical development - design the machine and ignore the user: not effective! Poor visibility, couldn"t see things close up to tanks like ditches or rocks. Seating positions caused back and neck injuries, More damage to the operators than enemy! Altitude displays in airplanes: too complex (took 7s to read; misread 12% of time: design the machine and then fit user to machine (second approach) two different approaches: If intelligence required, select intelligent users (kinda like industrial psychology) Problem: not always possible to fine people who fit the machine. Women in ww2 weapons were not very productive.