Division of Neuroergonomics

Our Goals

• Investigate neural substrates of perception, cognition, and performance in humans interacting with real world systems, technologies, and machines (such as computers, automobiles, and healthcare organizations) in healthy and disease states.
• Localize cognitive processes in the performance of real-world tasks and use this information to optimize safety and efficiency.

Examples of Research Issues

• Prediction of driving safety errors and car crashes in drivers with behavioral and cognitive decline.
• Optimal display of information streams in "smart cars" to optimize driver performance and situation awareness.
• Design of healthcare systems to minimize errors and maximize safety.
• Design of virtual environments to maximize operator immersion and minimize discomfort.
• Effects of neurotransmitters (with licit or illicit drugs) on human-machine interactions.
• Enhancement of human-machine interactions based on brain activity profiles in complex tasks.
• Control of computer interfaces and devices using eye movement or brainwave signals of the physically disabled.
• Use of desktop and web-based virtual reality systems to probe neural substrates of cognition.

Principles

• Organization of human cognitive processes constrains our interactions with real world tasks.
• Patterns of performance and error in operators with abnormalities of specific mental functions (e.g., perception, attention, working memory, emotion, decision-making and implementation, awareness) can reveal how these functions map to real world tasks.
• Human performance and behavior are context dependent.

Significance

Understanding how human operators perform in real world tasks has implications for safety, productivity, and design in a range of key systems from transportation, to healthcare, to the power industry.

Personnel

The Division depends on multidisciplinary intellectual and technical developments and personnel in different fields, e.g., cognitive neuroscience, engineering, and computer science.