In response to labour shortages in the construction industry, the deployment of construction collaborative robots (CCRs) has become urgent. This study explored the factors impacting the acceptance of CCRs amongst construction workers. A theoretical model was formulated by integrating the technology acceptance model, initial trust, risk perception-safety (RP-S), risk perception-privacy (RP-Pr) and risk perception-performance (RP-Pe). The proposed model’s validity was validated with data gathered from 304 construction workers. The results indicated that RP-S and RP-Pe exerted a negative impact on initial trust, while PU produced a positive impact on initial trust. Initial trust, PU and PEOU positively influenced construction workers’ attitudes towards the use of CCRs, with initial trust identified as the most critical determining factor. PU and construction workers’ attitudes towards the use of CCRs positively influenced behavioural intentions. This research offered practical recommendations to promote the adoption of CCRs by construction workers for improving construction efficiency and safety.

Human interactions with virtual objects differ from those with real objects. Understanding these differences is essential for improving human-virtual interaction. This study examined movement time (MT) during pointing tasks in physical and AR environments and tested whether a highlighted background enhances AR performance. A within-subject block-factorial experiment with 32 participants investigated the effects of index of difficulty (ID), movement angle, gender, hand dominance, and background design on MT. Results showed that MT in AR was approximately three times longer than in physical settings. The MT disparity between the two environments was influenced by ID, movement angle, and background design. Highlighted backgrounds reduced MT in AR, particularly at higher IDs and in longitudinal movements. Predictive MT models further revealed that, in physical settings, ballistic and visually controlled phases were segmented at an optimal ID of 6.13, whereas AR movements were predominantly visually controlled. These findings inform AR design for periuser interactions.

Highly automated vehicles (level 4) will be launched soon. This study explored factors affecting the acceptance of level 4 automated vehicles (AV) amongst the public. The technology acceptance model (TAM), technology anxiety (TA), social influence (SI), facilitating condition (FC) and trust (TR) were integrated to develop a level 4 AV acceptance model. A web-based questionnaire was used for data collection from 693 Chinese participants. Structural equation modelling was utilized to analyze the collected data. The results showed that TAM is applicable to explain level 4 AV acceptance amongst the public. The effects of FC on perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness (PU) are positive. TA negatively influences PU. SI positively influences PU and behavioural intention to use AVs. TR positively influences attitude towards using AVs and is positively determined by PU. Based on the results, some practical implications for increasing the use of level 4 AVs amongst the public were provided.

Virtual reality (VR) interventions have become a promising therapeutic modality to improve the prevalent mental health problems among college students. Despite the growing evidence, a comprehensive meta-analysis is absent. To evaluate the effectiveness of VR interventions on anxiety, stress, and negative emotions in college students, a meta-analysis was conducted. Sixteen randomized controlled trials published between 2014 and 2023 with 46 records and 1022 participants were analyzed. Significant VR intervention effects on anxiety (Hedge’s g = 0.492, p < 0.001), stress (Hedge’s g = 0.344, p = 0.028), and negative emotions (Hedge’s g = 0.461, p = 0.001) among college students were found. The meta-regression analysis revealed that the number of sessions, intervention type, and mean age significantly moderated the effect size. This study offered initial empirical evidence of VR interventions’ effectiveness in reducing anxiety, stress, and negative emotions in college students. Future research directions and methodological suggestions are proposed.

Attaining mutual trust between humans and agents is considered pivotal in designing effective human-AI interaction methodologies. This research aims to develop and validate a questionnaire to measure people’s perception of AI agents’ trust in them. Two studies with 1373 participants were conducted. Study 1 focused on human-vehicle cooperation, using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to develop the Perception of Being Trusted (PBT) scale, and the mediation analyses were performed to explore the mediation effect between the human’s propensity to trust and trust in the agent by PBT. Study 2 extended the scenario to human-AI cooperation, using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to validate the structure of PBT scale and path analysis were performed to explore the impact of PBT on behavioral intentions toward AI agents. Results confirm the PBT scale’s validity and predictive power, offering valuable insights into human psychological responses and promoting mutual trust in human-AI relationships.

Telecare has the potential to tackle emerging problems in public healthcare resulting from the graying of population. This study aims to investigate the personal, social and regulatory factors associated with the telecare acceptance for older adults in Hong Kong. A structured questionnaire survey was administered to 110 seniors aged 60–80 years. The results revealed that older people prefer to use the products that they are familiar with. Seniors of very poor economic status are likely to use telecare service. Family and friends support, self-satisfaction, and social relationship are critical factors which positively influence telecare usage of older adults via influencing their perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. Regulatory factor of perceived incentives positively associates with the attitude of older people toward telecare service, and in turn facilitates telecare usage. This is the first study which stressed that public regulations, such as incentive interventions, should be emphasized in promoting telecare acceptance.

This study aims to provide a synthetic examination of the determinants of the behavioral intention (BI) of older adults to use technology and to investigate the moderating variables that contribute to heterogeneity in prior literature. This study is developed through meta-analysis involving 35 primary studies over 15 years. Results indicate that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and social influence are substantially correlated with the BI of older adults to adopt technology. These determinants perform differently when regional disparity is considered, thereby suggesting a cross-cultural study in the future. Moreover, older adults’ willingness to use familiar technologies, such as smartphones, is strongest, whereas their acceptance of unfamiliar technologies, such as healthcare systems and devices, is likely affected by the three determinants. The synthesized results may benefit researchers in determining future research directions and decision makers in gerontechnology research and development and marketing.

Recognising the rise of an aging population and independent living among older adults, many governments and organisations have developed and promoted new technologies in the form of gerontechnologies to support the needs and enhance the well-being of older adults. However, the adoption of products using such technology remains modest among the aging population. This study introduces the notion of power in the form of power posing and examines its impact on new technology adoption, particularly gerontechnology, among older adults. Using an experimental approach on a sample of older adults exposed to an in-house near-field communication-enabled light system, the study finds that high-power poses have a greater and more positive impact on older adults’ perceived ease of use of, perceived usefulness of, and intentions to use gerontechnology than low-power poses. Implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

A multi-task paradigm involving dual tracking for hand and foot and a discrete choice response task with signals presented in different modalities (visual–visual versus auditory–visual) was used to study the effect of spatial compatibility for various display-control configurations on performance. Delay in multi-task processing was observed when more than one task demanded the same cognitive resources for processing. Compatibility between stimuli and responses for the discrete response task was found to significantly affect the amount of delay in overall multi-task performance. When two fingers of the left hand were used for responses in the spatial compatibility task, there was an absence of salient frame of reference in the horizontal right–left dimension. Compared with the visual–visual signal presentation, the auditory–visual signal presentation resulted in significantly higher hand-tracking errors, response times, and response errors, implying that mixed-modality stimulus presentation for a discrete response task has an adverse effect on multi-task time-sharing, probably due to response conflict and the effects of shifting between visual and auditory modalities across trials. We conclude by providing ergonomics design implications and recommendations for multi-task environments to facilitate human–machine system design and improve overall system performance.

The relationship between a control movement and the effect most expected by a population is known as a direction-of-motion stereotype. Such stereotypes are important in order to study the impact of different design variables on user performance. In this paper, a neural network-based method is proposed to quantify the causal connection among design variables and to compute their relative influences on the two performance measures of user response time and response accuracy. Based on the experimental data presented here, the best operating condition with which to optimize each of the measures is suggested. Some useful observations about the relationship between design variables and measures are also presented and discussed. In ergonomics, there have been a lack of useful quantitative methods for investigating the mappings between different displays and controls under a variety of operating conditions. The major contribution of this study is to provide some insight into the usefulness of quantitative methods in evaluating display-control compatibility.

This paper studies the strength and reversibility of direction-of-motion stereotypes and response times for a digital counter with 2-D (four-way) lever controls. The results showed that the forward-for-increase (FI), backward-for-decrease (BD), up-for-increase (UI), and down-for-decrease (DD) stereotypes were generally weak in the four-way lever-digital counter configuration, with the FI-BD and UI-DD stereotypes being dominant at the horizontal and vertical planes, respectively. The FI-BD stereotypes at the horizontal planes were generally stronger than the UI-DD stereotypes at the vertical planes, indicating that the horizontal planes are the desirable planes for positioning a four-way lever in working with the digital counter. In consideration of the mean stereotype strengths and indexes of reversibility, the compatibility of the lever control-digital counter was much lower than that of the four-way lever-circular display configuration found in a previous study. The analysis of the contribution of component principles also confirmed that the UI, DD, FI, and BD stereotypes were much weaker than the stereotypes found in the four-way lever-circular display combination. The findings suggested that a circular display is a better partner than a digital counter with a four-way lever.

This paper presents the results of research on elemental standard reading time estimates for traditional Chinese characters on computer displays and explores the factors that may affect the time estimates. Seventy-two native Chinese readers, aged 19 to 24, were asked to read 16 simple passages and then answer four multiple-choice questions. Results indicated that the basic reading time was 213 milliseconds per character (msC − 1) for comprehending the messages conveyed by the passages. Analysis of variance showed that font type, character size, line spacing and display polarity affected reading speed. Traditional Chinese characters of Ming style, 14-point size, double line spacing and positive polarity produced faster reading times and higher preferences than characters of Li style, 10-point size, single line spacing and negative polarity. However, only character size had a significant influence on comprehension score. Recommendations for appropriate display formats and layouts for traditional Chinese characters on computer displays based on the results of subjective preferences and objective measures are discussed.