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Operator responsiveness to critical alarm/alert display systems must rely on faster and safer behavioral responses in order to ensure mission success in complex environments such as the operator station of an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS). An important design consideration for effective UAS interfaces is how to map these critical alarm/alert display systems to an appropriate sensory modality (e.g., visual or auditory) (Sarter, 2006). For example, if an alarm is presented during a mission in a modality already highly taxed or overloaded, this can result in increased response time (RT), thereby decreasing operator performance (Wickens, 1976). To overcome this problem, system designers may allow the switching of the alarm display from a highly-taxed to a less-taxed modality (Stanney et al., 2004). However, this modality switch may produce a deleterious effect known as the Modality Shifting Effect (MSE) that erodes the expected performance gain (Spence & Driver, 1997). The goal of this research was to empirically examine a technique called bridging which allows the transitioning of a cautionary alarm display from one modality to another while simultaneously counteracting the Modality Shifting Effect. Sixty-four participants were required to complete either a challenging visual or auditory task using a computer-based UAS simulation environment while responding to both visual and auditory alarms. An approach was selected which utilized two 1 (task modality) x 2 (switching technique) ANCOVAs and one 2 (modality) x 2 (technique) ANCOVA, using baseline auditory and visual RT as covariates, to examine differences in alarm response times when the alert modality was changed abruptly or with the bridging technique from a highly loaded sensory channel to an underloaded sensory channel. It was hypothesized that the bridging technique condition would show faster response times for a new unexpected modality versus the abrupt switching condition. The results indicated only a marginal decrease in response times for the auditory alerts and a larger yet not statistically significant effect for the visual alerts; results were also not statistically significant for the analysis collapsed across modality. Findings suggest that there may be some benefit of the bridging technique on performance of alarm responsiveness, but further research is still needed before suggesting generalizable design guidelines for switching modalities which can apply in a variety of complex human-machine systems.

No / This study aimed to determine if response times gathered during perimetry can be exploited within a thresholding algorithm to improve the speed and accuracy of the test. Frequency of seeing (FoS) curves were measured at 24 locations across the central 30° of the visual field of 10 subjects using a Method of Constant Stimuli, with response times recorded for each presentation. Spatial locations were interleaved, and built up over multiple 5-min blocks, in order to mimic the attentional conditions of clinical perimetry. FoS curves were fitted to each participant’s data for each location, and response times derived as a function of distance-from-threshold normalised to the slope of each FoS curve. This data was then used to derive a function for the probability of observing response times given the distance-from-threshold, and to seed simulations of a new test procedure (BURTO) that exploited the probability function for stimulus placement. Test time and error were then simulated for patients with various false response rates. When compared with a ZEST algorithm, simulations revealed that BURTO was about one presentation per location faster than ZEST, on average, while sacrificing less precision and bias in threshold estimates than simply terminating the ZEST earlier. Despite response times varying considerably for a given individual and their thresholds, response times can be exploited to reduce the number of presentations required in a visual field test without loss of accuracy.

Emergency response times have been shown to be directly correlated with mortality rates of out-of-hospital patients. Studies have been conducted to show the relationship between time and mortality rates until patients receive the proper treatment. With more cardiac arrests and other life threatening illnesses occurring in the United States, more emergency calls will be required as well. As of today, technological advancements have been made to reduce response times, but human factors still require certain procedures, causing delays in the run time and increasing the rate of mortality. Here we show the results of emergency response times with the market penetration of connected and autonomous vehicles. With connected and autonomous vehicles, the average time emergency vehicles spend on the roadways can be significantly decreased. Safety procedures with human drivers can be eliminated, giving the emergency vehicle a proper right-of-way through virtual emergency lanes and removing the need to slow down and avoid vehicles at intersections or during periods of heavy congestion. Our results show a three minute decrease in response time under full market penetration of the technology, reducing the mortality rate and increasing the potential to save lives.

Pilots are subject to varying levels of stress, workload, and fatigue during long flights. During different phases of a commercial flight, pilots are engaged in multiple tasks which include going through checklists, checking conditions at their destination, communicating with Air Traffic Control and dealing with other flight related tasks. The amount of work varies from the earlier stages until the end of the flight. It is not well understood how changes in the amount of workload can affect a pilot's ability to engage with important tasks that relate to safety of flight. The work shown in this thesis focused on the level of engagement displayed by flight crew as a function of level of workload. The principal hypothesis was that very low levels of workload may lead to crew disengagement and sub-optimal levels of performance. The degree to which pilots remain alert and are fatigued during a commercial flight is also not established in a concrete way.

Cognitive control allows us to function in a world filled with constant stimulation. For example, the act of reading a book requires the ability to inhibit irrelevant information while focusing attention towards the letters on the page. Our cognitive control system regulates what information receives attention and what is denied resources. The goal of the current paper is to investigate the mechanisms underlying the activation and maintenance of the control system and how this process changes in healthy aging. First, the ability of younger and older adults to activate and maintain control in response to trial type manipulations is investigated. Second, improvements are made to recent experimental evidence suggesting younger adults are able to modulate performance based on specific stimulus history. Third, this work is extended to an older population suggesting the ability to modulate performance based on specific stimulus history is maintained in healthy aging. Finally, it is demonstrated that current theories of control fail to account for age-related differences in performance based on the comparison of trial type and specific stimulus manipulations.

Consumer researchers have long accepted that consumption can serve as a tool in the creation, maintenance, and expression of consumers' identities. And brands, in particular, may be important to the consumer self, even potentially serving as relationship partners. This dissertation explores how brands that are important to consumers may impact their identities at a cognitive level. Specifically, I apply Aron et al.'s (1991) "including others in the self" paradigm from interpersonal relationship research, which finds that people's cognitive representations of close others overlap the psychological self, to studying the impact of brands on the self. I provide evidence that consumers' mental representations of loved brands, which may be perceived as relationship partners, overlap the psychological self in memory. I refer to this as self-brand overlap. I also consider the relevance of disliked brands to the consumer self, providing evidence that consumers' mental representations of disliked brands are dissociated from the psychological self in memory. I refer to this as self-brand dissociation.In two studies I demonstrate and replicate the self-brand overlap and dissociation effects. And, study 2 further explores these constructs, providing evidence that self-brand overlap and dissociation are the cognitive representations of positive and negative, respectively, consumer-brand relationships. This dissertation also includes three further studies that aim to identify boundary conditions of these effects. However, no conclusive support is found for a role of any of the explored moderators. Specifically, studies 3 through 5 find the self-brand dissociation effect in every condition, in every study, suggesting that self-brand dissociation is impervious to the boundary conditions examined. Evidence for the self-brand overlap effect, which was demonstrated in both studies 1 and 2, however, is mixed in each of these 3 later studies. Potential reasons for this lack of concrete replication are offered.

Web development is a challenging task and it’s easy to neglect feedback from users in development stages. That’s why the aim is to create a tool which would help the communication between developers and users by using A/B-testing. The idea is to let developers release two choices containing images, which would be the intended design changes. By letting the users vote for the preferred option, they will be able to provide some feedback for the developers. Response times becomes a critical factor for the tool’s overall success. Therefore, this study compares MySQL and PostgreSQL through a technical experiment to see which database would be the better option regarding the image processing. The experiment indicated that PostgreSQL would the better alternative regarding the subject, as it had the most responsive processing of images. This prototype provides a good foundation for a potentially useful system that could be implemented in future work.

Lethality of aggravated assaults has long been discussed in terms of weapons used, location of assault, demographics of victims, and regions of the US in which the assault occurred. However, dating back to the 1950s, medical response times have been discussed as a mediating factor, but minimally explored in analyses. The current study assesses the lethality of shootings with a primary focus on emergency medical and police response times in New Orleans, LA. Along with routine activities and social disorganization indicators, 102 shootings that occurred in 3 months are analyzed to establish response time patterns of lethality. Results indicate that neither medical nor police response times impact the odds of a victim surviving a shooting, but instead, it is the days on which the violent encounters occur and the socioeconomic characteristics of the neighborhood that have a stronger influence on life or death, although not statistically significant. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.