One of the most significant issues in Human-Machine Interaction relates to how much autonomy delegates to automation and whether this could degrade the human perception of control, referred to as Sense of Agency. In this study, the What-Whether-When model of intentional action was used to look for variations in the Sense of Agency by measuring the Intentional Binding effect when the human is told either what action to perform or whether to act or when to act. Participants were asked to reproduce the time interval between a keypress and an acoustic tone (delivered at different time intervals). In Experiment 1, this action could be entirely voluntary or fully constrained by the computer. In Experiment 2, the computer constrained only one decision component at a time (either what, whether, or when). Experiment 1 indicates that Intentional Binding is increased for voluntary actions. Results from Experiment 2 suggest that selecting what to do, whether, and when to act have different effects, with the Sense of Agency being degraded when participants were told what action to perform and whether to act. Further, results show the presence of a specific window of opportunity needed for the Sense of Agency to develop for each constraint.

Current demographic and health trends mean it is becoming imperative to rethink healthcare provision worldwide. This paper introduces SPHERE, a large-scale Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration that aims to make a contribution to addressing this challenge. Specifically, SPHERE is developing a smart home system based on a common platform of non-medical/environmental sensors to address a variety of healthcare needs. In order to achieve its goal of widespread deployment, SPHERE technology must meet the requirements of its envisaged users. In this paper we present the rationale and methodology of an ethnographic study of people's experiences of health and technology. The aim of this study was to gather rich contextual data to inform the design of meaningful and inclusive healthcare technology.

It’s hard to say why and even how commemorative issues of established publications such as Interacting with Computers happen. Certainly, the larger-than-life stature of especially early, founding agents in a discipline inspires what has been phrased recently (in a far different context) as “shock and awe”. It’s so very easy in hindsight to understand the understandings – the mental models – that progenitors contribute to this current world. All of the pieces seem to fit, intuitively, as if there was no chance for them to have turned out differently. The fact is that regardless of the field, the early shapers of disciplines are by definition geniuses who, in another very different context, went where no one had gone before. In important ways, this was Brian Shackel – or is, given his continuing influence on Human–Computer Interaction (HCI). It was not at all obvious in his early days that things would turn out as they have.

Brian Shackel was responsible for initiating the first international conference on human–computer interaction, INTERACT ’84. This was in the same year to which George Orwell referred in the now-classic book, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Both texts share the common theme of being concerned with information and its effects on the individual. In Professor Shackel’s paper (the focus here), both aspects are considered over a 60-year lifespan – with a particular emphasis on his interest on “Designing for People in the Age of Information”. This keynote address at the INTERACT conference is reviewed and the accuracy of his many predictions for the future considered. It is concluded that despite Professor Shackel’s preoccupation with designing for humans some quarter of a century ago, there still is much work to do.

Advances in fusion of multi-sensor inputs have necessitated the creation of more sophisticated fused image assessment techniques. The current work extends previous studies investigating participant accuracy in tracking individuals in a video sequence. Participants were shown visible and IR videos individually and the two video inputs side-by-side, as well as averaged, discrete wavelet transform, and dual- tree complex wavelet transform fused videos. Two scenarios were shown to participants: one featured a camouflaged man walking down a pathway through foliage and across a clearing; the other featured several individuals moving around the clearing. The side-by-side scanpath data were analysed by studying how often participants looked at the visible and infrared sides, and analysing how accurately participants tracked the given target, and compared with previously analysed data. The results of this study are discussed in the context of wider applications to image assessment, and the potential for modelling human scanpath performance.

Image fusion is the process of combining images of differing modalities, such as visible and infrared (IR) images. Significant work has recently been carried out comparing methods of fused image assessment, with findings strongly suggesting that a task-centred approach would be beneficial to the assessment process. The current paper reports a pilot study analysing eye movements of participants involved in four tasks. The first and second tasks involved tracking a human figure wearing camouflage clothing walking through thick undergrowth at light and dark luminance levels, whilst the third and fourth task required tracking an individual in a crowd, again at two luminance levels. Participants were shown the original visible and IR images individually, pixel-averaged, contrast pyramid, and dual-tree complex wavelet fused video sequences. They viewed each display and sequence three times to compare inter-subject scanpath variability. This paper describes the initial analysis of the eye-tracking data gathered from the pilot study. These were also compared with computational metric assessment of the image sequences

The prevalence of image fusion---the combination of images of different modalities, such as visible and infrared radiation---has increased the demand for accurate methods of image-quality assessment. The current study used a signal-detection paradigm, identifying the presence or absence of a target in briefly presented images followed by an energy mask, which was compared with computational metric and subjective quality assessment results. In Study 1, 18 participants were presented with fused infrared-visible light images, with a soldier either present or not. Two independent variables, image-fusion method (averaging, contrast pyramid, dual-tree complex wavelet transform) and JPEG compression (no compression, low and high compression), were used in a repeated-measures design. Participants were presented with images and asked to state whether or not they detected the target. In addition, subjective ratings and metric results were obtained. This process was repeated in Study 2, using JPEG2000 compression. The results showed a significant effect for fusion but not compression in JPEG2000 images, while JPEG images showed significant effects for both fusion and compression. Subjective ratings differed, especially for JPEG2000 images, while metric results for both JPEG and JPEG2000 showed similar trends. These results indicate that objective and subjective ratings can differ significantly, and subjective ratings should, therefore, be used with care.

Research suggests screen reading is slower and possibly less accurate than reading from paper. Six study and test sessions over 10 months examined correct scores and retrieval responses for learning material presented via these two media. Correct scores did not differ suggesting that close matching of material can eliminate any decrement in reading speed or accuracy from screens. However, the way in which knowledge was retrieved varied between the presentational formats. These differences were time related and suggest that repeated exposure and rehearsal of computer-based information is necessary to equate knowledge application with that achievable from hard copy alternatives. It is suggested that this difference might be due to cognitive interference caused by cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor characteristics of refresh rates, fluctuating luminance, and contrast levels.

Personal ([2] C Barnatt, Cyber Business — Mindsets for a Wired Age, Wiley, New York, 1995) computers and networks have transformed communications in the workplace over the last decade. Tomorrow’s society is likely to revolve around the use of Computer Mediated Communication (CMCs) to eschew the geographical distance between individuals ([27] N. Negroponte, Being Digital, Hodder and Stoughton, 1995; [28] D. Norfolk, The virtual enterprise, Information Age November Issue (1995) 32–39). A new dilemma for designers of this technology will be discovering ways of humanising systems development and design. This paper develops a framework called CLIMATE (Community, Language, Interaction, and Medium in the Analysis of Telepresence Environments) which may ultimately be used for capturing user and environment requirements. The virtual environment that forms as a result of this CMC is rich in social nuances, such as on-line friendships, communities and so on, that sometimes reflect the elaborate cultures of real life ([37] H. Rheingold, The Virtual Community, Minerva, 1995). CLIMATE is intended to help in capturing a more holistic picture of requirements, in terms of the users, task, and environment. The approach is inductivist, relying on gathering rich data from log transcripts, participant observation and questionnaire surveys. It is intended that CLIMATE will provide a step further towards integrating social and technical design requirements in the application of CMCs.

Journal Article Virtual reality: an overview of User-related Design Issues Revised Paper for Special Issue on "Virtual reality: User Issues" in Interacting With Computers, May 1998 Get access Stella Mills, Stella Mills * aCheltenham and Gloucester CHE, Faculty of Business and Social Studies, PO Box 220, The Park, Cheltenham GL50 2QF, UK *Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-1242-543231; fax: +44-1242-543205 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jan Noyes Jan Noyes bUniversity of Bristol, Department of Experimental Psychology, 8 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TN, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Interacting with Computers, Volume 11, Issue 4, April 1999, Pages 375–386, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0953-5438(98)00057-5 Published: 01 April 1999

There is an increasing awareness of the importance and the benefits to be attained from consulting the end-users during system and product development. Although the rationale of utilizing the expertise of end-users in the system development life cycle appears to provide an apparently straightforward, even 'ideal' approach, there are many difficulties associated with eliciting the required knowledge from experts, both general and specific to every user group. Furthermore, many developers do not know how to involve users, or if they do, they do not utilize them to best effect. In the avionics sphere, the wealth of knowledge possessed by line pilots and flight engineers represents a vital information resource for the design of future flight-deck systems. As a specific example, this paper overviews some of the considerations which arose from working with these end-users in the early stages of the development of a warning and diagnostic system for civil aircraft. The end-goal of this particular phase of the work was the generation of guidelines for the design of the interface for the software engineers to use when building the prototype, and the methodological approach taken to achieve this is reported here.