Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Visual Attention In Remote Vehicle Supervision: Examining The Effects Of Mental Models And Information Bandwidth, Michael Stanley Politowicz

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Advances in automation and aviation technologies have been catalysts for the emerging market of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), an ecosystem of novel aircraft concepts including package delivery drones and passenger carrying air-taxis. Future aircraft operators in this environment will be tasked with remotely supervising multiple highly automated aircraft on a visual interface while receiving less training than traditional pilots. More research should explore how an operator’s potentially limited understanding of an automated system affects visual performance and interactions between human operators and AAM technologies. This study examined the influence of mental models of an autopilot system on visual attention allocation …

Valenced Media Effects On Robot-Related Attitudes And Mental Models: A Parasocial Contact Approach, Jan-Philipp Stein, Jaime Banks

Human-Machine Communication

Despite rapid advancements in robotics, most people still only come into contact with robots via mass media. Consequently, robot-related attitudes are often discussed as the result of habituation and cultivation processes, as they unfold during repeated media exposure. In this paper, we introduce parasocial contact theory to this line of research— arguing that it better acknowledges interpersonal and intergroup dynamics found in modern human–robot interactions. Moreover, conceptualizing mediated robot encounters as parasocial contact integrates both qualitative and quantitative aspects into one comprehensive approach. A multi-method experiment offers empirical support for our arguments: Although many elements of participants’ beliefs and attitudes …

Measures For Explainable Ai: Explanation Goodness, User Satisfaction, Mental Models, Curiosity, Trust, And Human-Ai Performance, Robert R. Hoffman, Shane Mueller, Gary Klein, Jordan Litman

Michigan Tech Publications

If a user is presented an AI system that portends to explain how it works, how do we know whether the explanation works and the user has achieved a pragmatic understanding of the AI? This question entails some key concepts of measurement such as explanation goodness and trust. We present methods for enabling developers and researchers to: (1) Assess the a priori goodness of explanations, (2) Assess users' satisfaction with explanations, (3) Reveal user's mental model of an AI system, (4) Assess user's curiosity or need for explanations, (5) Assess whether the user's trust and reliance on the AI are …

Can Gender Pronouns In Interview Questions Work As Nudges?, Fei Lu

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

Organizations that are historically male-dominated have struggled to attract and retain an equitable representation of women (Debs et al., 2021; Germain et al., 2012; Hall et al., 2018) Using the two systems processing model from Cognitive Psychology, this study assessed whether gender pronouns can function as environmental cues (“nudges”) to disrupt the patterns of mental models on biases and stereotypes. It was proposed that participants can be “nudged” to decrease the impact of gender stereotype biases in the interview process in male-dominated professions (e.g., Information Technology) such that pronouns used in the interview questions will interact with the interviewee’s gender. …

Automation Anxieties: Perceptions About Technological Automation And The Future Of Pharmacy Work, Cameron W. Piercy, Angela N. Gist-Mackey

Human-Machine Communication

This study uses a sample of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians (N = 240) who differ in skill, education, and income to replicate and extend past findings about socioeconomic disparities in the perceptions of automation. Specifically, this study applies the skills-biased technical change hypothesis, an economic theory that low-skill jobs are the most likely to be affected by increased automation (Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2019), to the mental models of pharmacy workers. We formalize the hypothesis that anxiety about automation leads to perceptions that jobs will change in the future and automation will increase. We also posit anxiety about overpayment related to …

Forms And Frames: Mind, Morality, And Trust In Robots Across Prototypical Interactions, Jaime Banks, Kevin Koban, Philippe De V. Chauveau

Human-Machine Communication

People often engage human-interaction schemas in human-robot interactions, so notions of prototypicality are useful in examining how interactions’ formal features shape perceptions of social robots. We argue for a typology of three higher-order interaction forms (social, task, play) comprising identifiable-but-variable patterns in agents, content, structures, outcomes, context, norms. From that ground, we examined whether participants’ judgments about a social robot (mind, morality, and trust perceptions) differed across prototypical interactions. Findings indicate interaction forms somewhat influence trust but not mind or morality evaluations. However, how participants perceived interactions (independent of form) were more impactful. In particular, perceived task interactions fostered functional …

Metaphors, Mental Models, And Multiplicity: Understanding Student Perception Of Digital Literacy, Jason Tham, Kenyan Degles Burnham, Daniel L. Hocutt, Nupoor Ranade, John Misak, Ann Hill Dunn, Isabel Pedersen, Jessica Lynn Campbell

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

This study examines student perception of digital literacy from their engagement with the Fabric of Digital Life, a digital archive of emerging technologies. Through grounded theory analysis we identified the ways students make sense of an unfamiliar technology. Our results show students assign metaphors to understand a new digital platform, apply mental models transferred from previous conceptual domains onto new technologies, and express multiply-layered approaches that facilitated their digital literacy development––an indication for instructors to orient toward an expansive description of digital literacy that caters to student learning needs as well as their professional futures.

Informing Website Navigation Design With Team-Based Card Sorting, Alex Sundt, Teagan Eastman

Library Faculty & Staff Publications

In 2016, Utah State University (USU) Libraries redesigned the library website’s main menu and underlying information architecture (IA) in response to a number of known usability problems and limitations. Card sorting studies were conducted with a group of USU undergraduate students and a mixed group of faculty and graduate students to help develop a better understanding of users’ mental models of library-related research and service tasks. Participants worked in teams to sort, rank and label cards pertaining to the content and feature of the library’s website. Afterwards, participants discussed and performed usability tasks on each other’s categories. Results were used …

The Heat Is On! Perspectives And Practices Regarding Extreme Heat Risk, Emily D. Esplin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Remembering negative experiences with extreme heat may promote future protective actions and provide insight to improve heat risk awareness and communication practices. This two-part thesis found 1) that experiencing heat-related health symptoms predicted what Americans would do to protect themselves and others during subsequent heat waves; and 2) that Utah professionals regard heat-related experience as an important factor in how they responded to extreme heat events.

In the first study, a US national survey showed that personal experience with heat-related health symptoms was related to the tendency to say that one engaged in different protective behaviors, while other factors like …

Metropolitan Planning Organizations And Climate Change Action, Susan G. Mason, Michail Fragkias

Urban Studies and Community Development Faculty Publications and Presentations

Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) sit at a unique nexus of government arrangements and missions that could be effective for addressing issues of climate change. Using survey and secondary data this study investigates the potential of metropolitan planning organizations to play a formative role in climate change action and policy. We examine factors that promote MPOs involvement in climate change issues by bridging two types of literatures in a quantitative modeling framework: the institutional responses to environmental change, driven by conceptualization of urban systems as social-ecological systems, and the public policy, regional planning and local politics literature. We find robust MPOs, …

Model Matching Theory: A Framework For Examining The Alignment Between Game Mechanics And Mental Models, Rory Mcgloin, Joe A. Wasserman, Andy Boyan

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The primary aim of this article is to provide a comprehensive review and elaboration of model matching and its theo- retical propositions. Model matching explains and predicts individuals’ outcomes related to gameplay by focusing on the interrelationships among games’ systems of mechanics, relevant situations external to the game, and players’ mental mod- els. Formalizing model matching theory in this way provides researchers a unified explanation for game-based learning, game performance, and related gameplay outcomes while also providing a theory-based direction for advancing the study of games more broadly. The propositions explicated in this article are intended to serve as the …

Eye Tracking As A Control Interface For Tele-Operation During A Visual Search Task, Jeffrey Neal Levy

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study examined the utility of eye-tracking as a control method during tele-operation in a simulated task environment. Operators used a simulator to tele-operate a search robot using three different control methods: fully manual, hybrid, and eye-only. Using Endsely’s (1995a) three level SA model and a natural interface (e.g., eye-tracking) as a more user-centered approach to tele-operation, the study measured objective, electroencephalogram, and subjective (NASA-TLX) measures to reflect both workload and situation awareness during tele-operation. The results showed a significant reduction in mental workload, as reflected by EEG measures. However a significant effect was found where the operators’ perceived mental …

Avoiding Zombies In Archival Replay Using Serviceworker, Sawood Alam, Mat Kelly, Michele C. Weigle, Michael L. Nelson

Computer Science Faculty Publications

[First paragraph] A Composite Memento is an archived representation of a web page with all the page requisites such as images and stylesheets. All embedded resources have their own URIs, hence, they are archived independently. For a meaningful archival replay, it is important to load all the page requisites from the archive within the temporal neighborhood of the base HTML page. To achieve this goal, archival replay systems try to rewrite all the resource references to appropriate archived versions before serving HTML, CSS, or JS. However, an effective server-side URL rewriting is difficult when URLs are generated dynamically using JavaScript. …

The Effects Of Mental Models And Expertise On Running Memory And Clinical Handoff Effectiveness, Brittany Lee Anderson-Montoya

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The goal of the present study was to examine the effects of mental models and expertise on the ability to process handoffs of information. In addition, the role of active or passive processing was examined. Three groups of participants participated, differing in their level of clinical expertise to represent a novice, intermediate, and expert population. Participants performed an abstract running memory span task and two tasks resembling real world activities, an air traffic control (ATC) handoff task, and a clinical handoff task. For all tasks list length and the amount of information to be recalled was manipulated. Further, in the …

Beyond Social Exchange Theory: An Integrative Look At Transcendent Mental Models For Engagement, Latha Poonamallee, Sonia Goltz

College of Business Publications

In this paper, we develop an integrative conceptual framework capturing the underlying mental models that guide engagement in relationships at work and elsewhere. Specifically, we are looking at mental models that go beyond egocentrism and social exchange, which have served as the basis for most frameworks found in research on organizations. The goal of this paper is to present a more complex picture of human cognition and behavior that suggests that egocentrism is not an exclusive motivator. We view this more integrative framework as a set of concentric circles of increasingly inclusive and expansive identities. Although the mental models used …

Security Of Attachment To Spouses In Late Life: Concurrent And Prospective Links With Cognitive And Emotional Wellbeing, Robert J. Waldinger, Shiri Cohen, Marc S. Schulz, Judith A. Crowell

Psychology Faculty Research and Scholarship

Social ties are powerful predictors of late-life health and well-being. Although many adults maintain intimate partnerships into late life, little is known about mental models of attachment to spouses and how they influence aging. A total of 81 elderly heterosexual couples (162 individuals) were interviewed to examine the structure of attachment security to their partners; respondents also completed measures of cognition and well-being concurrently and 2.5 years later. Factor analysis revealed a single factor for security of attachment. Higher security was linked concurrently with greater marital satisfaction, fewer depressive symptoms, better mood, and less frequent marital conflicts. Greater security predicted …

Identity Construction And Information Processing In A Coaching Relationship: The Effects Of Coach Behavior On Coachee Goal-Setting And Commitment, Christopher Coultas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coaching (professional, business, executive, leadership) has been shown to be effective generally speaking, but questions remain regarding the explanatory mechanisms underlying coaching. I first propose a context-general model that unpacks the sociocognitive dynamics within coaching. The model explains the emergence of different types of coaching relationships, and how the nature of these relationships differentially determine coaching outcomes. Research and theory on social identity construction and information processing in dyads provides the foundation upon which I outline a model describing the process and dynamics of coaching identity emergence. Beyond this emergence, my proposed model states that the coachee's understanding of appropriate …

Mental Models For The Negation Of Conjunctions And Disjunctions, Guillermo Macbeth, Eugenia Razumiejczyk, María C. Crivello, Claudia Bolzán, Carolina I. Pereyra Girardi, Guillermo Campitelli

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This study investigates why reasoning that involves negation is extremely difficult. We presented participants with reasoning problems containing sentences with negation of conjunctions and disjunctions in order to test predictions derived from the Mental Models Theory of human thought. According to this theory, reasoning consists of representing and comparing possibilities. Different sentential forms would require different cognitive demands. In particular, responses to a sentential negation task would be modulated by working memory load. This prediction would hold for correct responses but also for the general pattern of responses that includes incorrect responses when the task offers different response options. A …

Embodied Metaphors And Creative “Acts”, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Suntae Kim, Evan Polman, Lay See Ong, Lin Qiu, Jack A. Goncola, Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

Creativity is a highly sought after skill. To inspire people’s creativity, prescriptive advice in the form of metaphors abound: We are encouraged to think outside the box, to consider the problem on one hand, then on the other hand, and to put two and two together to achieve creative breakthroughs. These metaphors suggest a connection between concrete bodily experiences and creative cognition. Inspired by recent advances on body-mind linkages under the emerging vernacular of embodied cognition, we explored for the first time whether enacting metaphors for creativity enhances creative problem-solving. In five studies, findings revealed that both physically and psychologically …

The Effects Of Diagrams And Relational Complexity On User Performance In Conditional Probability Problems In A Non-Learning Context, Vincent J. Kellen

College of Computing and Digital Media Dissertations

Many disciplines in everyday life depend on improved performance in conditional probability problems. Most adults struggle with conditional probability problems and several prior studies have shown participant accuracy is less than 50%. This study examined user performance when aided with computer-generated Venn and Euler type diagrams in a non-learning context. Despite the prevalence of research into diagrams and extensive research into conditional probability problem solving, this study is one of the only studies to apply theories of working memory to predict user performance in conditional probability problems with diagrams. Following relational complexity theory, this study manipulated problem complexity in computer …

Embodied Metaphors And Creative "Acts", Angela K.-Y. Leung, Suntae Kim, Evan Polman, Lay See Ong, Lin Qiu, Jack A. Goncola, Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Creativity is a highly sought after skill. To inspire people’s creativity, prescriptive advice in the form of metaphors abound: We are encouraged to think outside the box, to consider the problem on one hand, then on the other hand, and to put two and two together to achieve creative breakthroughs. These metaphors suggest a connection between concrete bodily experiences and creative cognition. Inspired by recent advances on body-mind linkages under the emerging vernacular of embodied cognition, we explored for the first time whether enacting metaphors for creativity enhances creative problem-solving. In five studies, findings revealed that both physically and psychologically …

Building The Infrastructure: The Effects Of Role Identification Behaviors On Team Cognition Development And Performance, Matthew J. Pearsall, Aleksander P. J. Ellis, Bradford S. Bell

Bradford S Bell

The primary purpose of this study was to extend theory and research regarding the emergence of mental models and transactive memory in teams. Utilizing Kozlowski et al.’s (1999) model of team compilation, we examine the effect of role identification behaviors and argue that such behaviors represent the initial building blocks of team cognition during the role compilation phase of team development. We then hypothesized that team mental models and transactive memory would convey the effects of these behaviors onto team performance in the team compilation phase of development. Results from 60 teams working on a command and control simulation supported …

Cognitive Processes In Object-Oriented Requirements Engineering Practice: Analogical Reasoning And Mental Modelling, Linda Dawson

Associate Professor Linda Dawson

This paper presents a background in cognitive processes such as problem solving and analogical reasoning for considering modeling from an object-oriented perspective within the domain of requirements engineering. The paper then describes a research project and the findings from a set of four cases which examine professional practice from perspective of cognitive modeling for object-oriented requirements engineering. In these studies, it was found that the analysts routinely built models in their minds and refined them before committing them to paper or communicating these models to others. The studies also showed that objectoriented analysts depend on analogical reasoning where they use …

Learning Statistics Using Concept Maps: Effects On Anxiety And Performance, Patrick Francis Cravalho

Master's Theses

The aim of this thesis was to study the use of concept mapping in an

undergraduate statistics course in order to examine the effects on statistics anxiety and

academic performance by means of a two-group quasi-experimental design. Two

undergraduate statistics classes were recruited for this study with one serving as the

treatment (concept map) group and one serving as the control (standard instruction)

group. It was hypothesized that the use of concept mapping would decrease the statistics

anxiety and improve the academic performance of students in the concept map group

when compared with the control group. The statistics anxiety of …

Connecting The Dots: A Study Of An Innovative Principal Preparation Program's Impact On The Mental Models And On-The-Job Behaviors Of Aspiring School Leaders, Rich Newman Edd

Dissertations

Despite years of criticism aimed at university-based principal preparation programs, most of these programs continue to be judged less than successful in producing effective school leaders. Furthermore, there is also little rigorous and systemic research about principal preparation in general; there is even less work focused on understanding how preparation programs might assist emerging school leaders in developing the sorts of intellectual capacities needed to be successful in an era when principals are expected to be instructional leaders and work with teachers to improve student achievement. Consequently, little is known about how principal preparation programs can help individuals (a) incorporate …