C
S
L Notes
A quarterly newsletter of the
Cognitive
Science Laboratory, The Catholic University of America, Washington,
D. C. 20064.
FROM THE EDITOR..........
Carol Cairns
This is my first issue as the new editor of
CSL Notes, but it hasn't been accomplished single-handedly.
As with all issues it has been the collaborative effort of many
lab members, past and present. Take notice of a couple of additions:
check out some of our recommended COOL WEB SITES as well as the
schedule of talks during our weekly lunch/lab meetings where visitors
are always welcome!
It was an interesting summer. Regular lab
meetings were suspended, replaced by casual, congenial lunches.
Dr. Indramani Singh returned from Banaras Hindu University and
spent three summer months in the CSL as Visiting Research Fellow.
He continued his research on vigilance in relation to cockpit
automation and air traffic control. Raja and family spent two
weeks in Japan. They joined Raja's wife Rashmi who had
gone a couple of weeks earlier to work on a cancer project at
a prestigious cancer institute in Tokyo. Raja took the opportunity
to spend time with Dr. Inagaki at the Department of Electrical
Engineering at Tsukuba University. Dr. Inagaki has done excellent
work in an area that CSL also has expertise in adaptive automation.
On the way back from Japan, Raja visited Dr. Max Vercruyssen at
the University of Hawaii Medical School in Honolulu and discussed
the possibility of collaborating on research on aging and dementia.
During the summer our cadre of undergraduate
lab assistants worked regular "business hours" and the
rest of us got used to having them around, not for
the extra responsibilities
they assumed (although this was appreciated) but for the energy
and joie de vie they brought to the CSL. Unfortunately,
the scheduled data collection excursion to Hershey, Pennsylvania,
to study the effects of chocolate on the human spirit was RAINED
OUT. We chose one of the few days of precipitation in the lamented
summer-long drought! Maybe next year. We muddled through as contractors
worked all summer and into the fall to wire the O'Boyle
building for connection to the University's fiber optic
network. It was messy, noisy, and we stepped over each other a
bit, but we're ready to move into the world of technology
where the words, "the bridge is down" will be obsolete!
This long awaited connection is just over the horizon (see LAB
SYSTEMS MANAGER'S REPORT).
We head into the second year of our NASA,
Ames grant for automation for Free Flight studies and work progresses
on the other grants. Our prolific writers have been busy (see
NEW PUBLICATIONS). And one publication in particular was singled
out for a special award (see CSL NEWS)! Physical changes continue
to enhance our lab areas: new carpet in some places, repainting
in others, new lighting here and there, and the set up of a comfortable
waiting area for study participants in Room G-6. The cockpit simulator
and ATC simulation station are being assembled in G-8 and we anticipate
completion by the next issue.
THE DIRECTOR SPEAKS on..........Netiquette
Raja Parasuraman
Once upon a time people took pen to paper to communicate with
each other. Invitations, requests, well wishes, condolences, thanks,
rebuttals, proclamations of love; all were made known to
others through this now almost-extinct medium. (Sample: A six-year
old friend of my daughter Shanta wonders at her mailing a thank-you
letter for a gift: "Are you really going to spend 32 cents
out of your regular $4 weekly allowance to use the
postoffice?--can't
you use e-mail?). Replies inevitably came through the same
channel, except
in case of extreme urgency and need for utmost reliability, in
which case a personal messenger was dispatched. Letters were received;
replies were given with care and in full measure.
Has the invention first of the telephone, then of the computer,
and now of instant worldwide access, altered the characteristics
and style of communication? Pundits have debated this endlessly.
I have no wish to enter the fray. Nor am I a Luddite who wishes
to hark back to an era of genteel letter writing, willing only
to accept the technological move from the quill to the fountain
pen. My point is simply that there are some lessons than can be
learnt from earlier eras that can be usefully applied in the new
age of electronic communication -- whether e-mail, fax, Webnotes,
or postings to bulletin boards.
Many of these lessons are nicely summarized in the book Ethics
and Etiquette in Electronic Mail by Norman Shapiro (Cedar
Press, 1997). Judith Martin, better known as Miss Manners, has
also written on this topic in her regular newspaper column. It
is perhaps fashionable nowadays to sneer at Manners "with
a capital M" and I am probably as guilty as anyone,
having had to endure two years of British boarding school. But
a good case can be made that manners "with a small m" can
promote more effective electronic communication.
Netiquette concerns such issues as the proper salutation, how
to strike a balance between stiff formality and annoyingly personal
disclosures, how to respond to rude messages, what to do if one
is too busy to respond immediately, when a failure to reply is
unacceptable, and so on. Aspects of writing style and the ethics
of electronic mail are also discussed in Shapiro's book.
Lastly, here is my own addition to the Netiquette list of suggestions:
What length should an e-mail be? Brevity can be a virtue, and
few wish to scroll through pages and pages of electronic text.
But economy of writing can also be a refuge for laziness. Write
as much as is needed to convey the message. We should perhaps
also heed the words of Blaise Pascal (1652):
I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the
time to make it short.
(Je n'ai fait celle ci plus longue parce que je n'ai
pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.)
REPORT ON THE 41ST ANNUAL MEETING OF THE HUMAN
FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS SOCIETY..........
Scott Galster
The 41st Annual Meeting of the Human Factors Society was held
September 22-26, 1997, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. All members
of the Free Flight group at the CSL were able to attend this highly
educational forum. Raja co-chaired a workshop with John D. Lee,
Battelle Human Factors Transportation Center, titled "A Multimodal
Perspective on 'Automated-Induced Complacency'"
on Monday, September 22,. Raja also presented the paper "Human
Automation Interaction: Designing for Human Use" during
a symposium he co-chaired focusing on advances in automation research.
On Wednesday, the 24th, two CSL members presented posters
of current CSL research looking at the implementation of Free
Flight in the Air Traffic Management System. Jacqueline Duley
presented "Analysis of Information Requirements of En Route
Controllers under Different Levels of Free Flight"; Anthony
Masalonis presented "Air Traffic Control Workstation Mock-up
for Free Flight Experimentation: Lab Development and Capabilities."
New Mexico lived up to its name as "The Land of Enchantment",
according to the lab members. Outings included trips to Old Town,
Santa Fe, and Taos. Southwestern goods were plenty and the sights
were beautiful.
receive award at HFES">
Raja and Mustapha (and Rob, in spirit)
receive award at HFES.
The crowning event of the trip (see above)
occurred when Raja received The
Jerome H. Ely Human Factors Article Award during the Annual Banquet
and Awards Presentation. He shared the award with Mustapha Mouloua,
University of Central Florida, Orlando, and Robert Molloy, National
Transportation Safety Board, both CSL alumni. The article, "Effects
of Adaptive Task Allocation on Monitoring of Automated Systems"
appeared in the last issue of Human Factors for 1996.
REPORT ON 10TH EUROPEAN AEROSPACE
CONFERENCE ON FREE FLIGHT.........
Jacqueline Duley
Raja and Jackie attended this conference held in Amsterdam, October
20-22, 1997, and sponsored by the Confederation of European Aerospace
Societies and the National Aerospace Lab of The Netherlands (NLR).
Jackie presented "En Route Controller Information Requirements
from Current ATM to Free Flight" and Brian Hilburn, CSL
alumnus, presented "The Effect of Free Flight on Air Traffic
Controller Mental Workload: Monitoring and System Performance."
Attended predominantly by industry engineers working to create
the necessary technology for Free Flight to occur, the need for
human factors was well understood by many.
During the trip, Raja and Jackie were able to visit air traffic
control facilities at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. Mr. Bert Ruitenberg,
air traffic controller, demonstrated the capabilities of the facilities
as well as provided insight into the Dutch air traffic system.
While Raja and Jackie were in the control tower, a KLM B-737 communicated
to the controllers that the aircraft had just experienced a bird-strike
and may require assistance upon landing at Schipol. The crash,
fire and rescue vehicles were dispatched to the assigned runway
while other air traffic was re-directed to an additional runway.
Fortunately, the aircraft landed safely and there did not appear
to be sufficient engine damage to cause engine flame-out. All
passengers (we assume) were quite relieved.
REPORT ON CONFERENCE ON NEUROBIOLOGY, BEHAVIOR,
SUBSTANCE ABUSE, AND CULTURAL ISSUES..........
Stephanie Johnson
I recently had the opportunity to attend this excellent conference
in Los Angeles, California, and presented a poster entitled "Age
Effects In Cross Modal Auditory Attention." There were
several superb speakers who lectured on a variety of interesting
topics from psychopharmacology to the neuropsychological sequelae
of traumatic brain injury. The abstract I submitted on my work
on the effects of aging in cross modal auditory attention won
a student award and my research was well received. There was a
lot of interest shown in this area of research. In my opinion
the highlight of the conference was getting a feel for how our
work in the CSL (as well as other labs around the country) can
be applied to real life situations. All in all I had a very enjoyable
and enlightening experience!
LAB SYSTEMS MANAGER'S REPORT..........
Tony Masalonis
High Fiber Diet. The much-ballyhooed fiber optic lines
are scheduled to become active in O'Boyle Hall during October.
This will greatly diminish the hideous BNC (10-base-2) wires
that snake in and out of everyone's ceiling, and they will
be replaced with tasteful, colorful, blue (mostly) twisted-pair
(10-base-T) wires that look not much different from phone
wires, and that (in most rooms) will plug directly into a port
in the wall.
More important than these aesthetic considerations, the new fiber
optic lines installed around campus allow for faster and more
reliable data transfer between lab computers and the rest of the
world. In addition, the network within the lab should be speedier
and will be less prone to breakdowns. The twisted-pair/fiber-optic
network will not change the way you use networking applications
(Chooser, e-mail, Web).
Christmas All Year Long. During the summer, the CSL has
acquired new equipment including several new desktop systems (Mac
and PC) for lab members, a 2.6-gigabyte optical drive for backup
of hard disks and storage of all those gigantic EEG data files
collected in the basement Physio labs, a new Ethernet-capable
LaserJet printer, and a third complete ATC simulator to enable
the conducting of simultaneous Free Flight studies. In the works
are plans to obtain an eye tracker, to be used in both aging/attention
studies and the flight and ATC simulators.
CSL NEWS..........
APPLAUSE!
Major kudos to Raja Parasuraman, Mustapha Mouloua and
Rob Molloy! Their article "Effects of Adaptive Task Allocation
on Monitoring of Automated Systems" won The Jerome H. Ely
Human Factors Article Award of The Human Factors and Ergonomics
Society as the most outstanding article in Human Factors
during 1996. The award was presented at the 41st Annual Meeting
in Albuquerque.
Congratulations, too, to Stephanie Johnson; she won a student
award for her abstract submitted to the Conference on Neurobiology,
Behavior, Substance Abuse, and Cultural Issues.
WELCOME!
Warm welcome to the newest lab members. Ulla Metzger comes
as a Research Associate from the University of Jena, Germany.
She received a Master's degree in 1996 from Technical University
of Darmstadt and did research with J.C. Mundt at the Vermont Alcohol
Research Center (VARC) in Colchester, Vermont, developing driving
simulator scenarios sensitive to alcohol-impaired performance.
Working on NASA Ames grant, Ulla will be researching how different
levels of Free Flight affect mental workload of air traffic controllers.
Diego Castano, a PhD student in AE psychology, comes
to the CSL after working for NCR Corporation's Human Interface
Technology Center in Atlanta. He has a Master's in Human-machine
Systems Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Diego will be working on Free Flight research; his current interests
are widespread and range from the academics related to the practice
of aviation. Linda Kikuchi is a PhD student in developmental
psychology. She is currently doing her research on transition
to retirement. She will be collecting data both here in the lab
and at NIH. Feng Wang replaces Mike Le as the programmer
implementing upgrades to ATC simulation and pseudo-pilot software
on the Free Flight grant. Feng is a civil engeering graduate student
at the university. Neil Godleski is a freshman psychology
major who will work as a Lab Assistant to Jackie and Scott on
the NASA, Ames grant. His interest is to "get some real 'hands
on' experience" in a lab environment.
CONGRATULATIONS!
David, with committee members Pam Greenwood, Jim Howard, and Raja Parasuraman,
shortly following successful defense.
On October 30, David Hardy successfully defended his doctoral
dissertation, "Endogenous Inhibition of Exogenous Covert
Orienting in Younger and Older Adults." Well done, David!
FAREWELL!
We bid adieu to several lab members.
David Hardy (and Carole Ann and Emma) returned to California
after four years of study here. Having defended his dissertation,
David assumes a post-doctoral position at the UCLA Neuro-psychology
Program.
Sean Fannon graduated in May 1997. He joined the lab the
second semester of his freshman year at Catholic and, with the
exception of a semester of study in Italy, has worked continually
on several projects at the CSL. But it was the study of selective
attention using functional MRI, conducted with Raja and with Vince
Clark of NIH (see Clark, et al., NEW PUBLICATIONS) where
Sean's hard work paid off. When Vince accepted a tenure-track
position at the University of Connecticut Medical School, he asked
Sean to join him as a research assistant! Sean accepted and is
working at UConn for a year or two while preparing for graduate
study in cognitive neuroscience.
Nataliya Lomakina, who started working in the CSL at the
end of her junior year, also graduated in May. She is currently
preparing for graduate study.
Mike Le, our programmer, will be leaving the lab at the
end of the year and will be working at the Naval Research Lab
as he anxiously awaits graduation next May.
ALUMNI UPDATES......
Brian Hilburn: "I have been remodeling Dutch train
stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the
area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees.
I write award-winning operas, and......when time permits, I do
research into ATC human factors at The Netherlands National Aerospace
Lab in Amsterdam." On a personal note, Brian and his wife
Jessica are expecting a little Dutch-American in January.
Evan Byrne is very active as a human performance investigator
at the NTSB. On July 31 he was launched to Newark to participate
in the investigation of the Federal Express MD-11 landing accident.
Only seven days later he was launched to Miami to participate
in the investigation of the Fine Airlines DC-8 accident. During
follow-up activities in Memphis at Federal Express' headquarters
Evan had the opportunity to fly a MD-11 simulator and learn about
some of his automated features.
Sangeeta Panicker: The "featured graduate"
of the last issue of CSL Notes is Research Ethics Officer
in the Science Directorate, American Psychological Association,
Washington, D.C., where she monitors research ethics involving
animal and human participants.
PRESENTATIONS.........
At the Annual Cognitive Neuro-science Conference in Boston last
March, Yang Jiang presented a poster on the results of
the first two experiments on the Aging and Motion Perception project
she is working on with Pam and Raja.
Raja Parasuraman led two colloquia during the summer; one
at Tsukuba University, Tsukuba, Japan, and one at the University
of Hawaii Medical School, Honolulu.
Jackie Duley and Tony Masalonis presented posters
at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Human Factors Society in Albuquerque,
New Mexico, and Raja Parasuraman co-chaired a workshop
and presented a paper.
Stephanie Johnson presented a poster at the Conference
on Neurobiology, Behavior, Substance Abuse, and Cultural Issues
in Los Angeles.
Jackie Duley presented a paper at the International CEAS
Conference on Free Flight, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
At the October Annual Neuroscience Meeting in New Orleans, Yang
Jiang presented the work she is doing at NIH on working memory
using fMRI. Raja Parasuraman chaired a session on selective
attention and co-authored a paper on ERPs and multi-modal attention
with CSL alumnus Scott Adams.
SPECIAL REPORT..........
Cognitive Neuroscience and Human Factors: Can the Twain Meet?
Raja Parasuraman
Research in the Cognitive Science Lab (CSL) generally falls into
two camps, Cognitive Neuroscience and Human Factors.
Both areas are supported by research grants, primarily from NIH
and NASA, respectively. Since CSL's establishment in 1984,
a number of researchers--visiting fellows, postdoctoral fellows,
and graduate students-- have worked in one of these two areas.
CSL alumnus Sangeeta Panicker, now policing the ethics of human
and animal experimentation at the American Psychological Association,
affectionately referred to her human factors colleagues in the
CSL as "propeller heads," because of their work in
aviation. No one seems to have come with a term to describe the
cognitive neuroscientists, and so I will propose one: "brain
heads."
Research at the CSL is thus being done by both brain heads and
propeller heads. I suppose these two apparently diverse areas
of investigation owe their existence in this lab to my personal
interest in both fields. (Those interests arose because my early
training was in electrical engineering and physiology, followed
only later by psychology--but that is another story). Many people
who know of my work in one field are often unaware of my research
in the other. For example, I showed an article in New Scientist
on dogs trained to detect drugs at airports to a colleague at
the recent Human Factors and Ergonomics Conference in Albuquerque.
He was surprised to see me referred to as a "cognitive
neuroscientist"
in the article, which discussed research on brain mechanisms of
attention and vigilance. At the same time, only a few people whom
I will see at the upcoming Society for Neuroscience meeting in
New Orleans will know of my work in human factors. One such person
is neuroscientist Martin Sarter, who has done excellent animal
research on vigilance--and that is only because he is married
to Nadine Sarter, who has done equally superb work in aviation
human factors. (As an aside, Martin and Nadine have told me that
they are not sure they fully understand the nuances of each other's
work and that I am the only person who can talk shop with either
of them at the same time!).
What exactly are the two research areas that the CSL engages in?
Cognitive neuroscience is the study of human cognition from the
perspective of brain mechanisms. It has made great strides in
recent years because of the development of formal, computational
models of cognitive processes and because of the technological
revolution in noninvasive imaging of human brain function. Human
factors is the study of human performance capabilities and limitations
from the perspective of the design of systems in the real world.
Cognitive neuroscience and human factors are exciting fields for
me because both may be poised for a Great Leap Forward in the
21st century. The 1990s were declared the "Decade of the
Brain" by the White House, and there is tremendous excitement
at the prospect of arriving at a deep understanding of the neural
basis of cognition in the decades ahead. At the same time, human
factors may be coming of age in terms of its increasing acceptance
by industry. There now seems to at least tacit recognition that
any technological device or system that is used by humans, from
small consumer items such as personal computers to large scale
systems such as jet aircraft cannot be effectively operated without
adequate consideration of human factors in the design process.
Cognitive neuroscience and human factors are clearly disparate
disciplines, and their goals are such that they will probably
never interact much. Nevertheless, there is no reason why there
cannot be occasional fertile contact between the fields. To the
extent that cognitive neuroscience advances theoretical knowledge
on human functioning, it can influence the application of that
knowledge to the design of systems. For example, physiological
measurement of mental workload--a major area of concern in human
factors research--can be informed by developments in functional
brain imaging or event-related brain potentials. At the same,
human factors may provide an avenue for examining the practical
utility of basic findings generated by cognitive neuroscientists.
There are also a handful of well-known investigators who have
made significant contributions to both areas, including John Duncan,
Art Kramer, Mike Posner, and Walter Schneider, and of course,
one well-known couple, the Sarters. My own work on attention and
vigilance has also provided me with common ground. In examining
attention, I have turned both inward, to the study of the brain
mechanisms of attention (Parasuraman, in press), as well as outward,
to the investigation of attentional capabilities and limitations
in simulations of real-world tasks such as piloting, driving,
and air traffic control (Parasuraman & Mouloua, 1996).
Although the propeller heads and brain heads in the CSL have usually
worked independently, there has been occasional collaboration.
Examples include: (1) assessing vigilance and performance in persons
with closed-head injury (Parasuraman et al., 1991); (2) relating
cognitive and brain imaging measures of attentional functioning
in healthy and mildly demented older adults to driving ability
(Parasuraman & Nestor, 1991); (3) using event-related brain
potentials to understand the impact of automation on mental workload
during simulated flight (Panicker et al., 1995); (4) using eye
scanning and heart rate variability measures to evaluate air traffic
controller performance (Hilburn et al., 1996); (5) using physiological
measures to develop adaptive automation (Byrne & Parasuraman,
1996); and (6) linking work on cognitive aging and cognitive neuroscience
to the assessment of the flight performance of older pilots (Hardy
& Parasuraman, 1997).
Much of this interdisciplinary work has been done by an older
generation of CSL personnel who have gone on to promising independent
careers elsewhere (Byrne, Hardy, Hilburn, Molloy, Mouloua, Nestor,
Panicker). I highlight this work not only because I am proud of
their efforts, but also for the benefit of those persons who have
come on board more recently in the CSL. Not everyone will want
to engage in interdisciplinary research, but the opportunity for
collaboration between fields is there. The CSL may also be relatively
unique in providing training in these two fields in a mutually
supportive environment. If you are a brain head, take a look at
what the propeller heads are doing--you may be surprised to learn
something new and relevant; if you are a propeller head, don't
dismiss the brain--you may need it some day!
Finally, some people have inquired whether I feel "schizophrenic"
in engaging in research in both cognitive neuroscience and human
factors. The answer is no. People also ask me what the impact
is on the students who work in the CSL. I cannot answer for everyone,
but my general impression is that they value the interdisciplinary
environment fostered by this dual focus. Propeller heads and brain
heads unite! I also feel that because of economic and practical
constraints, the era of narrow specialization in science in general
and psychology in particular is nearly over. It surely cannot
hurt to expose students to multiple avenues of scientific thought
and practice.
Byrne, E.A., & Parasuraman, R. (1996). Psychophysiology and
adaptive automation. Biological Psychology, 42, 249-268.
Hardy, D., & Parasuraman, R. (1997). Cognition and flight
performance in older pilots. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Applied, 3, 251-286
Hilburn, B., Jorna, P. G. A. M., Byrne, E. A., & Parasuraman,
R. (1996). Dynamic decision aiding in air-traffic control: A bio-behavioral
analysis. Vivek: A Quarterly in Artificial Intelligence, 9,
30-38.
Panicker, S., Byrne, E.A., & Parasuraman, R. (1995). Auditory
P300 and heart-rate variability as indices of mental workload
in a multi-task environment. Proceedings of the Second International
Symposium on Cognition and Education, Varanasi, India
Parasuraman, R. (in press). The Attentive Brain. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Parasuraman, R., Mutter S., & Molloy, R. (1991). Sustained
attention following mild closed-head injury. Journal of Clinical
and Experimental Neuropsychology, 13, 789-811.
Parasuraman, R., & Mouloua, M. (Eds.) (1996). Automation
and Human Performance: Theory and Applications. Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum Associates.
Parasuraman, R., & Nestor, P. G. (1991). Attention and driving
skills in aging and Alzheimer's disease. Human Factors,
33, 539-557.
READING FOR WORK..........
Ethics and Etiquette in Electronic Mail, by Norman
Shapiro. See THE DIRECTOR SPEAKS. (Raja)
Human Error. Cause, Prediction, and Reduction, by
John W. Senders & Neville P. Moray. (Jackie)
Memory's Ghost, by Philip J. Hilts.
A mesmerizing account of the mechanics of memory and what it means
to be human; the strange tale of Mr. H.M. (Camilla)
Cognitive Neuroscience, edited by Michael D. Rugg.
Covers topics from the relatively specific to the broad; a good
introduction to the field and would make a good graduate seminar
textbook. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. (David)
..........OR PLEASURE
Longitude. The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the
Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, by Dava Sobel.
A tale of intrigue, human ambition and greed as well as a story
of scientific discovery and perhaps the world's first official
research-and-development agency. Interesting yet "quick"
read. (Carol)
Delta Wedding, by Eudora Welty. A story by a Pulitzer
Prize- winning author about the impending wedding between the
daughter of a Mississippi plantation owner and the overseer. Seeing
this event from the vantage point of nearly every family member,
the reader comes to realize the story is about not only the failures
but also the successes of family members and saying the things
to each other that really need to be said but so often are not.
(Pam)
The Poet, by Michael Connelly. A fun, exciting thriller.
(Chris)
Hideaway, by Dean Koontz. For those who enjoy psychological
thrillers. Questions arise when a man, pronounced clinically dead
is resuscitated. Where did he go when he died? Who or what did
he bring back with him? A commentary on the presence of good and
evil, and their force in the world; especially enjoyable on a
rainy day. (Jennie)
The Notebook, by Nicholaus Sparks. (Danielle)
Wild Swans--Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang.
The author, now living in London, tells powerful and moving stories
of her grandma, mother, and herself. Though on several best seller
lists, I usually trust opinions of people I know. According to
my own survey of friends who read the book, it is compelling to
readers with or without Chinese culture background. (Yang)
GRANT UPDATES..........
SPATIALLY CUED VISUAL PROCESSING OVER THE ADULT LIFE SPAN,
NIA. Pam Greenwood reports that the third year of this
grant has seen completion of data collection in three of the proposed
studies on effects of age on the ability to detect and locate
spatially unpredictable luminance targets. Individuals in their
30's and 40's are planned to be added to these studies. Another
of the proposed studies, the star-crossed study of effects of
age on parameters of event-related potentials which are sensitive
to attention, is (again) underway. Chris, who runs this study
from day-to-day, has completed data collection from a group of
young participants and has a growing sample of elderly participants.
He is in the process of averaging these data. A group of "old
old" elderly will be added to the study. At the same time,
several studies have investigated the scale of visuospatial attention
in healthy aging and in Alzheimer Disease. Two papers on this
topic have been published and a third is currently being revised
for submission. Data from a fourth study was presented in New
Orleans at the Annual Neuroscience Meeting (see PRESENTATIONS).
David Hardy is wrapping-up his NRSA-predoctoral fellowship.
Funding discontinues upon conferring of his PhD. He is now being
encouraged by Paul Satz, his new boss at UCLA, to apply for a
NRSA postdoctoral fellowship. "Here we go again!"
COOL WEB SITES
Camilla: www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/6144//
This is my mom's Family Home Page
Carol: www.nauticalworks.com/fitz.cfml
I'm intrigued by the mystery surrounding the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald.
From this site you can link to Mary Wilhlem's award-winning
page, a tribute to her father Blaine H.
Wilhelm (www.ships-service.com/fitz/index.cfml).
Scott: stardate.utexas.edu/
Interested in star gazing? Cool! It's Hot!
Tony: www.macworld.com, www.pcworld.com, www.pcmagazine.com
Online versions of Macworld,
PC World, and PC Magazine for product reviews, tech
info, previews of new technologies, and business info.
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
October 25-30, 1997,
Society for Neuroscience,
New Orleans, Louisiana
November 20-23, 1997,
Psychonomic Society,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
March 25-28, 1998,
Third Automation Technology and Human Performance Conference,
Norfolk, Virginia
April 5-7, 1998,
Cognitive Neuroscience Society,
San Francisco, California
May 21-24, 1998,
American Psychological Society,
10th Annual Convention,
Washington, D.C.
May 27-29, 1998,
International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in
Aeronautics,
Montreal, Canada:
Submissions due Nov. 14
October 5-9, 1998,
Human Factors & Ergonomics Society,
Chicago, Illinois:
Lecture proposals due March 9,
Poster proposals due April 20
NEW PUBLICATIONS..........
Clark, V.P., Parasuraman, R., Keil, K. Kulansky, R., Fannon, S.,
Maisog, J., Ungerleider, L.G., Haxby, J.V. (1997). Selective attention
to face identity and color studied with fMRI. Human Brain Mapping,
5, 293-297.
Hardy, D., & Parasuraman, R. (1997). Cognition and flight
performance in older pilots. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Applied, 3, 251-286.
Parasuraman, R. (1997). Human use and abuse of automation. In
M. Mouloua and J. Koonce (Eds.) Human-Automation Interaction:
Research and Practice. (pp. 42-47). Mahwah, NJ, Erlbaum Assoc.
Parasuraman, R., Hancock, P.A., & Olofinboba, O. (1997). Alarm
effectiveness in driver-centered collision-warning systems. Ergonomics,
40, 390-399.
Parasuraman, R., & Riley, V. (1997). Humans and automation:
Use, misuse, disuse, abuse. Human Factors, 39, 230-253.
Singh, I.L., Molloy, R., & Parasuraman, R. (1997). Automation-related
monitoring inefficiency: The role of display location. International
Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 46, 17-30.
SCHEDULED WEDNESDAY TALKS
Sept 10 "Lab Systems Tutorial" (Tony Masalonis)
Sept 17 "Designing for Human Use of Automation" (Raja
Parasuraman)
Sept 24 No meeting
Oct 1 "The Frontal Aging Hypothesis" (Pam Greenwood)
Oct 8 "fMRI of Face Working Memory Using Rapid and Random
Stimulus Presentation" (Yang Jiang)
Oct 15 "En Route Controller Information Requirements from
Current ATM to Free Flight" (Jackie Duley)
Oct 22 "Aging and Alzheimer's Disease: Lessons from
the Nun Study", Journal Club led by Stephanie Johnson
Oct 29 "Endogenous Inhibition of Exogenous Covert Orienting
in Younger and Older Adults" (David Hardy)
Nov 5 "Cognition and Flight Performance", Journal
Club led by Raja Parasuraman
Nov 12 No meeting
Nov 19 Colloquium by Drs. Jinghan Wei and Yuejia Luo, Beijing,
China
Nov 26 Thanksgiving--no meeting
Dec 3 "Heart Rate Variability and Mental Workload in Free
Flight" (Dennis Rowe, Mitre Corporation)
Dec 10 "ATC Simulator Baseline Data" (Scott Galster)
CSL Notes is published quarterly by the Cognitive
Science Laboratory, The Catholic University of America. Inquiries
concerning subscriptions, submissions, suggestions, etc. should
be sent to :
Carol Cairns, Editor
Cognitive Science Lab, CUA
250 OB
Washington, D.C. 20064
FAX at 202-319-4456; e-mail
cairns@cua.edu.
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