UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO FACULTY OF APPLIED SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

MIE 523F: ENGINEERING PSYCHOLOGY & HUMAN PERFORMANCE Final Examination, Dec. 17, 2018; Room BA-2195 Duration: 2.5 hours (150 minutes) (14:00 to 16:30)

Examiner: Paul Milgram Exam Type A: No textbooks, notes or aids (other than non-programmable calculators) may be used.

ANSWER ANY FOUR (4) QUESTIONS (i.e. only 4 answers will be marked.)

NB: Each full question is worth 27 marks. Sub-values are indicated. (This means that the maximum possible grade on the exam is 108 (out of 100))

Make sure to allocate your time accordingly (approx. 35 minutes per question). In general it makes sense to use the marks allocated to a question as a guide to how much you should write to answer that question.

Use of sentences is preferable; however, if you use point form, make sure that each point has a subject and a verb. When making sketches, make sure to label all elements clearly.

It is to everyone's mutual advantage that you write clearly, neatly, legibly and coherently.

Explain each of the following concepts (within the context of the course) and for each concept discuss briefly 27%I how this concept might impact performance and/or might practically be applied. (In other words, the essential

question you are trying to answer is "why are we learning about this concept in an engineering course?")

(4%) a) Out-of-the-Loop Unfamiliarity

(5%) b) Representativeness Heuristic

(5%) c) Stroop Effect

(5%) d) Visual momentum

(4%) e) Chunking

(4%) f) Principle of pictorial realism

It has been estimated that approximately 200 out of every 100,000 cars in Canada are stolen every year. PlC

27% Canada (the Predatory Insurance Company) charges a premium of $150 per year to insure a vehicle worth $40000 against theft. Should a rational person purchase PlC's theft protection insurance for a $40,000 car? Why?

3% (To keep things simple, you should ignore factors such as liability, depreciation, deductible amounts, as well as the fact that some cars are more likely to be stolen than others.)

If your answer to part (a) is "yes", at what price do you think such an insurance policy would become too

4% expensive for a rational person to pay for it?

"no", If your answer to part (a) is explain why a non-rational person might purchase theft insurance in any case.

4% If you were Bill Gates (or some other analogous billionaire), do you think that the decision to buy insurance for

'ordinary' your car would likely be different than for an person. Make sure to explain your answer.

8% Despite the ubiquity of signs and ads warning people that talking on a cell phone while driving is dangerous, propose two reasons why you think people nevertheless still do this. Make sure to explain your reasoning.

A level crossing is an intersection at which a railway line crosses a road at the same level, as illustrated in the photo. Regardless of whether there is a signalling system to warn

9,

about the imminent arrival of a train, drivers are taught that 5% they nevertheless should look both ways along the railway

track before proceeding, with caution, to cross the tracks.

as opposed to just speeding through a level crossing without

Propose a theory, based on Signal Detection Theory, to explain a driver's decision about whether to look both ways.

V. explicitly looking for an oncoming train.

On the basis of an estimated 20 million cars in Canada, PlC Canada (truthfully) claims in some of its ads that 3% "40,000 cars are stolen every year in Canada; make sure to buy insurance!" Propose an effective ad slogan for

the anti-insurance lobby, to convince people not to buy insurance from PlC. Explain your reasoning.

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27% One of the demos that we did in class was the (Eriksen) Flanker Test. To 41M M* jog your memory, that task involves presenting a series of stimuli such as the three different examples shown in the figure to the right. The participant's instruction is to press the keyboard arrow key corresponding to the direction of the middle arrow, as quickly as possible following the appearance of the stimulus.

9%

Explain that demo, and what principle it was attempting to illustrate.

3% Discuss some practical applications of this principle. (In other words, once again, why is this included in our course on Engineering Psychology?)

c 15% 350

Graph #1 _ Graph #2 Graph #3

Boo 300 300 700

100 300

- - - -. - -

250 600 200 4

150

... . ...... . ...... 2 2 - -

ion so

[ i

200

0 Ti 2 .1 4 5 Ti T2 T9 T4 T T1 T2 T3 T T5

Graph #4

4 2 24 2 4 21 2

T1 3 T2 3 T3 T, T5

In the figure above are shown readings from four instruments {1, 2, 3, 41 at 5 points in time {T1 , T2, T3, T4, T51, plotted in four different ways in Graphs #1, #2, #3, #4. (Note that all of the instrument readings have positive values. Note also that the fact that the figures are printed in black and white should not pose a big problem.)

In Graph #1, the instrument readings are plotted as separate points (without symbols), and neighbouring points are joined by lines. The data from instruments 1, 2, 3,4 are labelled respectively.

In Graph #2, the readings are plotted as successive sets of four bar graphs (for the 4 instruments), for each of the 5 points in time, IT,, T2, T3, T4, T5}.

Graph #3 is a 'stacked area graph', where the value of each reading is plotted (similar to Graph #1), but on top of each other, with instrument 1 at the bottom, followed by instrument 2, etc, and with the areas in between filled in. In other words, the top of each filled in area represents the total of all the readings below that point.

Graph #4 comprises a set of separate quadrilateral (4-sided) 'object displays' (Excel calls them 'marked radar' graphs), where the four axes for each object correspond to the 4 instrument readings { 1, 2, 3, 41. The five graphs correspond successively to the five points in time {T1 , T2, T3, T4, T5}.

At this point in your careers, it should be clear that these four representations of the same data should not be considered as equally effective. In terms of the following five types of graph reading tasks:

a) Point reading; b) Local comparisons (of readings for the same instrument); c) Global comparisons (of readings for different instruments); d) Synthesis (e.g. predicting future values, etc.); e) Evaluating fluctuations among correlated variables,

explain for each of the four representations {Graphs #1, #2, #3, #41 which of the five graph reading tasks you think that particular graphing format is likely to be most and least effective. An alternative approach is to rank the effectiveness of the four Graphs for each of the graph reading tasks, together with an explanation of your ranking.

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Select four (4) models or results of research conducted on human working memory and discuss their practical 27% implications. In other words, for each model (or set of research results) that you choose, explain how that set of

8% findings might be used as a guideline for designing displays and/or controls and/or procedures, etc.

Imagine that you have been hired as a translator for the Japanese embassy. One of your primary tasks in this role is to simultaneousl)' translate for visiting dignitaries, from Japanese into English, whenever a Japanese diplomat is giving a speech ... in real-time! That means that you must listen to the Japanese speaker while at the same time

10% speaking your translation into a microphone for the English speaking audience listening through headphones. The reason for specifying Japanese in this question is because in contrast to English, for which the standard sentence structure is Subject—Verb—Object, the standard sentence order in Japanese is Subject—Object—Verb. In other words, in most Japanese sentences the verb at the end of the sentence comes.

Describe the inherent difficulties of this task, using the Multiple Resources Model as a framework for your discussion.

You will undoubtedly agree that the human information processing model presented in Chapter 1 of the textbook (the one referred to repeatedly throughout the course) is unlikely to be suitable for capturing the nuances and

C) 9°7 complexities of the simultaneous translation task that you will have discussed in part (b).

Instead, propose your own block-diagram model (for example, some kind of a functional flow model) that explains, from the point of view of human information processing, what one must do to perform simultaneous translation, as described above. Make sure that your model captures the critical factors that make this task so difficult (as discussed in part b). It also goes without saying that you must provide an explanation of your model.

I he case or the US warship Vincennes shooting down of Iran Air 1A655 over the Persian Gulf in 1988 was 27% presented in class as an example of a series of errors that collectively led to a tragic outcome. In that event, the

crew of the Vincennes believed that the civilian airliner, which in reality was flying a scheduled domestic route, was actually an Iranian fighter jet that was in the process of attacking their ship.

The following is a list of some of the factors that were later identified as contributing to the final outcome. For each point in the list, provide an explanation of one or more Engineering Psychology principles associated with that point, which you believe might have contributed to the incident.

Another American warship had been attacked by hostile forces in the Persian Gulf approximately one year (90%) earlier. That ship had not fired in defence, and subsequently had been hit by a missile that killed 37 and

wounded 21. The Vincennes crew was very aware of that earlier incident.

There were a number of other confrontations between (small) Iranian gunboats and shipping in the Gulf that were going on at the time of the IA655 incident.

The civilian airplane, IA655, had taken off from an airport at which it was known that Iranian jet fighters were stationed. The route of the airplane (on its way to Dubai) passed directly above the USS Vincennes.

Although the Americans had a copy of the schedule of planned civilian airliner departures from the Iranian airport, it was not easy to interpret (for among other reasons due to an inconsistency in time zones). In addition, it is believed that IF655 took off about one hour later than scheduled.

The civilian airplane was using the same radio frequency to identify itself as Iranian fighter jets had been using. IA655 had initially been assigned a tracking number, which had been switched during the incident. This switching of tracking numbers was originally not noticed, such that there was confusion within the American crew about which aircraft was being tracked.

Even though IA655 was ascending to its cruising altitude at the time, the Americans believed that it was descending (towards them). Although the location of IA655 could be seen on the large overview display, that was a two dimensional display. No real-time altitude information could be seen on the overview display (which would have required a third dimension) ... but it could be found on other digital readout displays. In order to infer the tracked aircraft's trajectory, to determine whether it was ascending or descending, operators would have had to make successive readings of the digital readout displays, lasting several seconds.

The Vincennes was one of the US's most automated warships, with many of its crew acting as supervisory controllers. The combat information officers had to monitor a large screen overview display of all activities in the region, their own radar screens, and various character readout displays related to targets being tracked.

The decision making team responsible for the incident comprised 5 crew members. However several others were responsible for tracking the flight and passing on the relevant data.

The Vincennes' rules of engagement were that unless an approaching aircraft could be visually identified as a non-threat, it was automatically considered a threat. Unfortunately, the crew did not believe that they had enough time available for such a visual sighting to be made; the entire incident above, from IA655 take-off to shoot-down, took only 7 minutes.

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6. 1 h tollowing is a series 01 multiple-chOice questions. However, tor each question you must not only inalcate

27% most appropriate answer from the list, but you must also justify your choice of answer ... and/or explain why the rejected answers are incorrect. (Receiving part marks for each question is a distinct possibility here.)

a) In Signal Detection Theory (SDT), optimal beta can be defined in terms of payoffs (costs and values). Which (90%) of the following should increase optimal beta?

an increase in the value of a correct rejection an increase in the value of a hit an increase in the cost of a miss a decrease in the cost of a false alarm

b) Which of the following are not separable display dimensions? size (area) and brightness spatial location and temporal order shape and colour saturation colour hue and saturation

c) In a study it was found that radiologists provided with a 'reading aid' (i.e. a checklist of features plus a response scale) were better able to distinguish cancerous tumours from benign cysts than radiologists without the reading aid. In SDT terms, this can be interpreted as that the radiologists

with the reading aid were more conservative than those without with the reading aid were more liberal than those without without the reading aid were more influenced by disease prevalence than those who used the aid with the reading aid showed greater sensitivity than those without

d) When a target is present, visual search takes roughly half the time it takes when a target is absent. Why is that? On average, the target will be found halfway through the search The target is always placed halfway down the screen The target will be found if it is present The distractors are different if the target is not present

e) An emergent feature is: a unit that is processed more quickly than others a local property of a single stimulus that is evident when seen as part of a set of stimuli a global property of a set of stimuli that is not evident when each is seen in isolation a property which is used to recognize words by their shape

f) The term 'long-term working memory' refers to: working memory that does not require continuous rehearsal items that can be retained without rehearsal for several hours exceptional memory capacity as shown by savants skilled use of storage in long-term memory

g) Trying hard to understand an unknown foreign language is an example of: a data limited task a resource limited task resource allocation separated auditory resources

h) An example of two processes that use different resources in the multiple resources theory of multi-tasking is: perception versus working memory perception versus response selection response selection versus response execution all of the above pairs use different resources

i) Anchoring and the confirmation bias in decision making tend to be amplified by the influence of the: I. salience bias

overconfidence bias framing bias as-if heuristic

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