Social psychophysiological compliance (SPC) was tested as a predictor of future team performance of two-person teams performing a self-paced projective tracking task under laboratory conditions. Undergraduate students (N=16 teams, aged 17 to 23 yrs) worked in parallel using separate X-Y joysticks to guide a virtual object through a complex path. One team member controlled the horizontal position of the object while the other controlled vertical. Unexpected changes in task control dynamics occurred at a randomly-selected point in the path: either horizontal and vertical (HV) control were swapped between team members, directional control was reversed, or both HV swap plus directional reversal occurred. Higher cardiac SPC (cross correlation, lag=0) scores predicted lower tracking error from path centerline (p<.01) but did not predict collision severity between object and path wall. The results indicate that SPC has some potential for assessing a team's readiness to handle unexpected task demands in the immediate future.Key words: social psychophysiological compliance, teamwork, cybernetics Psychophysiological techniques can be used for objective and continuous monitoring of the human response to computer-mediated tasks but most studies employing these techniques have focused on individuals rather than teams. Furthermore, the reported empirical relationships are largely based on correlations between psychophysiological changes and performance measures collected over the same time period. The present study represents an attempt to develop a new approach, moving from individual to social psychophysiology, and from examining simultaneous events to testing if changes in social psychophysiology can be used to predict team performance in the immediate future. This research is guided by the behavioral cybernetic model developed by K.U. Smith and associates (Smith & Smith, 1987) which assumes that: (1) human behavior is controlled as a closed-loop or cybernetic process; (2) closed-loop behavioral links are established between sensory feedback from design factors in the performance environment; and (3) that sensory feedback control is mediated by motor behavior. This theoretical perspective differs from most present-day cognitive models that classify motor behavior as an output or end product of mental processes, that has no significant role in either controlling or organizing subsequent behavior.Looking beyond the obvious role of motor behavior in feedback control of the environment, K.U. Smith's cybernetic theory highlighted the many roles of motor activity in behavior organization such as dynamic and continuous control of posture, fine

There are numerous reports in the literature of an increase in crash risk associated with the performance of a secondary in-vehicle task while driving. Recently, it has been shown that the excessively long glances away from the forward roadway are the primary cause of the crashes that occur while the driver performs in-vehicle tasks. Driver training has proved successful over the short term in teaching novice drivers to limit the duration of their glances inside the vehicle, both in a driving simulator and on the open road. However, it is not known how well such training would work for novice drivers over the longer term. It is also not known whether training both the novice driver and his or her parent would have a positive impact over the long term. This driving simulator study was designed to address these questions. Half of the parent–teenager driver dyads received PC-based forward concentration and attention learning training while the other half completed placebo training. Eye tracking was used to measure in-vehicle glances at secondary tasks while participants navigated drives on a simulator. It was found that training had an effect on novice drivers over the short and long term and that trained novice drivers had glance patterns indistinguishable from those of their experienced parents at the end of 4 months.

NHTSA designed the Child Pedestrian Safety Curriculum to meet current national learning standards so that it could be added to a school’s regular syllabus. The curriculum focuses on pedestrian safety knowledge and skills identified by previous research as effective in reducing pedestrian crashes. The North Carolina Department of Transportation adapted NHTSA’s curriculum to arrive at the pedestrian module of the Let’s Go NC! pedestrian and bicycle safety program. The objectives of this research project were to examine how implementation of the curriculum was achieved by schools, teachers, and caregivers at a test site and to assess the degree to which the teaching of the curriculum translated to increased knowledge of safety and overall safer behaviors among students taught. The results from this study suggest that the Let’s Go NC! pedestrian safety module had a positive impact on students even when varying instructional approaches were used. The program appeared to be especially effective for increasing the self-reported pedestrian knowledge and supervised crossing behaviors of students in third grade and above. The study also showed only small improvements in child pedestrian behaviors in natural settings around the intervention schools. This finding suggests more may need to be done to have a greater impact on the behaviors of unsupervised children. At this point, it is unknown if repeated exposure to the curriculum, as intended in its design, would further increase the pedestrian safety knowledge and behaviors of students.

Automated systems are not only commonplace but a necessity to complete highly specialized tasks in many operational environments. Problems arise, however, when the automation is used injudiciously. Trust is known to influence how workers use and rely on automated systems, especially when the operational environment poses a great amount of complexity for the user. The environment in which most Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers operate is characterized by complexity that often demands the use of automation to complete required tasks. The TSA aims to better understand the influence of trust in automation on operational performance to better support its mission and workforce. This paper will discuss the methods, findings, and practical implications gleaned from an examination of the role trust plays on human-automation interactions in the operational environment at TSA.

Automated systems are not only commonplace but often are a necessity to complete highly specialized tasks across many operational environments. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) aims to enhance human performance and increase safety through the acquisition and implementation of various types of automated systems. The Human Performance Branch (HPB) at TSA supports this aim through research on human factors that influence interactions with automation. Knowledge gained from HPB efforts informs TSA of the automated systems that will best suit worker needs, how to integrate these systems into the general workflow, and the relevant human factors that will support proper system use and, ultimately, enhance human performance. This discussion panel reviews a theoretical framework the TSA can use to guide assessment of multiple drivers of human performance in a consistent and standardized fashion as well as several TSA projects investigating three categories of human factors known to influence performance with automation – human (i.e., individual differences, cognitive constraints), context (e.g., organizational influence, environment), and system characteristics (e.g., type of automation) – and how those factors can be accounted for in the operational environment.