Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Examining Driver Preferences For Intelligent Audiovisual Warnings At Highway-Rail Grade Crossings, Samantha Walker

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Driver noncompliance and poor decision-making are known contributors to highway-rail grade crossing incidents and accidents. Recent advances in intelligent in-vehicle warning systems have provided new opportunities for improved safety at highway-rail grade crossings. Intelligent warning systems that can communicate between connected vehicles and the infrastructure (V2I) have been proposed to improve safety. However, limited human factors research has been conducted regarding how drivers might react to these in-vehicle warnings. This study evaluated driver preferences, use cases, and message design variations for in-vehicle audiovisual warnings for rail crossing warning violations by varying two message factors: message length and whether the message …

Exploring Usability In Exercise Interventions: From Conceptualization To Measurement And Application, Anne Inger Mørtvedt

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Exercise interventions hold promise for preventing and treating numerous conditions, diseases, and injuries. However, these interventions will only be effective if they are being used. Unfortunately, uptake and adherence to prescribed exercise and physical activity guidelines are insufficient. Some reasons for this include lack of knowledge, resources, flexibility, and enjoyment. Exercise program developers need to not only consider the effectiveness of the program during the development phase, but also involve end-users and receive feedback on program usability to determine likelihood of uptake and adoption. Usability testing can be used to detect barriers to use and implementation likelihood but has not …

Explicit Rule Learning: A Cognitive Tutorial Method To Train Users Of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Systems, Anne Linja

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Today’s intelligent software systems, such as Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning systems, are sophisticated, complicated, sometimes complex systems. In order to effectively interact with these systems, novice users need to have a certain level of understanding. An awareness of a system’s underlying principles, rationale, logic, and goals can enhance the synergistic human-machine interaction. It also benefits the user to know when they can trust the systems’ output, and to discern boundary conditions that might change the output. The purpose of this research is to empirically test the viability of a Cognitive Tutorial approach, called Explicit Rule Learning. Several approaches have been used …

The Impact Of Pre-Experiment Walking On Distance Perception In Vr, Soheil Sepahyar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

While individuals can accurately estimate distances in the real world, this ability is often diminished in virtual reality (VR) simulations, hampering performance across training, entertainment, prototyping, and education domains. To assess distance judgments, the direct blind walking method—having participants walk blindfolded to targets—is frequently used. Typically, direct blind walking measurements are performed after an initial practice phase, where people become comfortable with walking while blindfolded. Surprisingly, little research has explored how such pre-experiment walking impacts subsequent VR distance judgments. Our initial investigation revealed increased pre-experiment blind walking reduced distance underestimations, underscoring the importance of detailing these preparatory procedures in research—details …

Investigating Collaborative Explainable Ai (Cxai)/Social Forum As An Explainable Ai (Xai) Method In Autonomous Driving (Ad), Tauseef Ibne Mamun

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Explainable AI (XAI) systems primarily focus on algorithms, integrating additional information into AI decisions and classifications to enhance user or developer comprehension of the system's behavior. These systems often incorporate untested concepts of explainability, lacking grounding in the cognitive and educational psychology literature (S. T. Mueller et al., 2021). Consequently, their effectiveness may be limited, as they may address problems that real users don't encounter or provide information that users do not seek.

In contrast, an alternative approach called Collaborative XAI (CXAI), as proposed by S. Mueller et al (2021), emphasizes generating explanations without relying solely on algorithms. CXAI centers …

Altering The Environment: The Effects Of Light And Music On Vigilance Performance And Affective State, Lauren Sprague

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Vigilance, otherwise known as a state of alert watchfulness, is a phenomenon that occurs when someone is sustaining their attention on a particular task or environment. Largely, tasks that require a state of vigilance induce negative mood outcomes, result in loss of performance over time, and cause increased disengagement from the task. These tasks involve detecting critical signals which are buried among more frequently occurring neutral signals. While little can be done to change the base nature of the vigilance task, altering the physical environment of the operator may improve working conditions to a point where there are fewer losses …

To Examine The Effects Of Exercise & Instructional Based Interventions On Executive Functioning, Motor Learning & Emotional Intelligence Abilities Among Older Adults, Lavanya Rajesh Kumar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Motor skills are a vital part of our life, and there might be situations where we will be required to either learn a new skill or relearn a known one. We examined the effectiveness of two different interventions - eccentric exercise and motivation-based instructions on enhancing the ability of older adults to learn a novel motor skill. Exercise intervention studies have shown that as little as 12 weeks of exercise can lead to improvements in both physical fitness and cognitive function in older adults, particularly executive control. But it is still unclear whether those improvements translate to improvements in other …

Investigating The Impact Of Explanation On Repairing Trust In Ai Diagnostic Systems For Re-Diagnosis, Lamia Alam

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

AI systems are increasingly being fielded to support diagnoses and healthcare advice for patients. One promise of AI application is that they might serve as the first point of contact for patients, replacing routine tasks, and allowing health care professionals to focus on more challenging and critical aspects of healthcare. For AI systems to succeed, they must be designed based on a good understanding of how physicians explain diagnoses to patients, and how prospective patients understand and trust the systems providing the diagnosis, as well as the explanations they expect. In this thesis, I examine this problem across three studies. …

The Stained Glass Of Knowledge: On Understanding Novice Mental Models Of Computing, Briana Christina Bettin

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Learning to program can be a novel experience. The rigidity of programming can be at odds with beginning programmer's existing perceptions, and the concepts can feel entirely unfamiliar. These observations motivated this research, which explores two major questions: What factors influence how novices learn programming? and How can analogy by more appropriately leveraged in programming education?

This dissertation investigates the factors influencing novice programming through multiple methods. The CS1 classroom is observed as a "whole system", with consideration to the factors present in it that can influence the learning process. Learning's cognitive processes are elaborated to ground exploration into specifically …

Ground Vehicle Driving Aids: Assessing Driver Workload And Performance In Degraded Visual Environments, Kayla Riegner

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

With degraded visual environments being a current priority to the Army, several research programs have been initiated to develop a complete sensor-to-soldier systems to allow operators to see through DVE conditions while conducting ground vehicle tactical operations. To enable indirect-driving maneuverability and threat detection in degraded visual environments (DVEs), CCDC’s ground DVE program developed and tested a range of sensors and driver aid display systems. Six candidate driving aids were identified and tested in three simulator studies and two field tests to examine the effect of driving aids on driver workload and performance in different visibility conditions. The simulator-based testing …

Interactive Sonification Strategies For The Motion And Emotion Of Dance Performances, Steven Landry

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Immersive Interactive SOnification Platform, or iISoP for short, is a research platform for the creation of novel multimedia art, as well as exploratory research in the fields of sonification, affective computing, and gesture-based user interfaces. The goal of the iISoP’s dancer sonification system is to “sonify the motion and emotion” of a dance performance via musical auditory display. An additional goal of this dissertation is to develop and evaluate musical strategies for adding layer of emotional mappings to data sonification. The result of the series of dancer sonification design exercises led to the development of a novel musical sonification …

How Do Angry Drivers Respond To Emotional Music? A Comprehensive Perspective On Assessing Emotion, Seyedeh Maryam Fakhr Hosseini

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Driving is a complicated task that requires the coordination of visual and sensory-motor skills. Unsafe driving behavior and accidents can happen regardless of the level of drivers’ experience. The main cause of the most of these accidents is human error. Emotions influence the way drivers process and react to internal or environmental factors. Specifically, anger elicited either from traffic or personal issues, is a serious threat on the road. Therefore, having an affective intelligent system in the car that can estimate drivers’ anger and respond to it appropriately can help drivers adapt to moment to-moment changes in driving situations. To …

The Tracer Method: Don't Blink Or You Might Miss It. A Novel Methodology Combining Cognitive Task Analysis And Eye Tracking, Kaitlyn Marie Roose

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis describes the development and first demonstration of a new Human Factors method, The Tracer Method, which is a combination of Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) and Eye Tracking. The study evaluated whether the two methods together produce new and different information than either method alone could provide. The method was tested using a video game, Overwatch, a dynamic, complex, and multiplayer game. The evaluation included: 1. Examining both in the same context (game), 2. Establishing unique contributions of each method alone, and 3. Evaluating overlapping information. Results identified some overlap between the two methods that provided some cross-validation …