Emerging Needs and Opportunities for Human Factors Research (1995) / Chapter Skim
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5 Environmental Change
5 Environmental Change
Pages 158-176
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From page 158... ...
Growing numbers of scientists from a variety of disciplines have been systematically studying specific aspects of this change and attempting to identify effective strategies for preventing or mitigating potentially catastrophic effects. Human factors researchers have not focused much attention on this area in the past.
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From page 159... ...
Stratospheric ozone thinning is believed to be a direct consequence of the accumulation of CFCs in the upper atmosphere. Major threats to clean, fresh-water supplies include contamination not only from precipitation of chemical emissions that have accumulated in the atmosphere but also from agricultural runoff containing pesticides and fertilizers, from waste discharges into rivers, from salt used for highway deicing, from hazardous wastes disposed of improperly, and from leachate from municipal dumps.
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From page 160... ...
POSSIBLE APPROACHES TO THE PROBLEM The problem of detrimental environmental change is broad in scope and considerably beyond the ability of the human factors research community to solve. But human factors researchers can contribute greatly by working toward the goal of finding effective ways to modify, or mitigate the effects of, the human behavior that is a major cause of such change.
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From page 161... ...
Finding ways to change the technology so that it is equally effective, if not more so, while doing less harm to the environment is a complementary alternative to attempting to modify behavior directly. This is the motivation for the concerted efforts to develop environmentally benign alternatives to the burning of fossil fuels for energy generation and for many other current research activities in the physical and biological sciences.
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From page 162... ...
The interests of the Human Factors Society's Technical Group on Environmental Design (Human Factors Society, 1991:38) , for example, "center on the human factors aspects of the constructed physical environment, including architectural and interior design aspects of home, office, and industrial settings." The Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology issue of PsycSCAN has "environment" as one of six major topics under which the abstracts are organized.
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From page 163... ...
A major purpose of this chapter is to stimulate thought and discussion about this question. RESEARCH NEEDS We believe that the extremely important problem of detrimental environmental change represents a major challenge and opportunity for human factors research and that such research has something of value to contribute, especially when it is directed to the question of how technology might be developed so as to serve its human purposes without affording the means of environmental degradation.
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From page 164... ...
There are numerous specific questions relating to energy use and environmental change that deserve the attention of human factors researchers. What determines when working from home or a satellite office can be an acceptable, if not a preferred, alternative to commuting to a centralized workplace?
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From page 165... ...
Why that is so is not entirely clear, but there can be no doubt that many human factors issues are involved in the question of how to make these technologies attractive and effective from the user's point of view. Electronic Substitutes for Paper Substituting electronic means of storing and distributing information for methods that depend on the use of paper is one instance of the substitution of resource-light for resource-heavy technologies that deserves special attention.
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From page 166... ...
This is not to suggest that realization of the potential of information technology for reducing the need for paper awaits only a better understanding of the psychological deterrents to the use of electronic media. The practical usability and the actual use of communication facilities also depend on the existence of an adequate infrastructure, pricing policies that provide incentives for use, and general access to the critical facilities.
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From page 167... ...
The goal of developing this technology is to simulate objects and situations in such a way that people can perceive and interact with the simulated realities very much as they would with whatever it is that is simulated, except without the inconvenience or, sometimes, the danger that would be involved in interacting with the real thing. There are many human factors questions relating to the development and use of virtual reality technology that represent challenges for research; the National Research Council has completed a study of some of these questions (Durlach and Mavor, 1995)
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From page 168... ...
. Inasmuch as industrial accidents can have -- and have had -- serious environmental consequences, work on the problem of designing industrial control stations and operating procedures so as to minimize the possibility of human error is very much in the spirit of what this chapter is intended to promote.
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From page 169... ...
It has become increasingly evident that the traditional ergonomics of control room design is insufficient to prevent large-scale accidents. Accidents occur because of complex interactions among people at all levels of an organization and between people and plant hardware; they occur despite regulations, training, and operating procedures that are intended to minimize accident potential.
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From page 170... ...
The next level, "general form," would include things like automated guideways for automobile traffic in specific locations and intelligent navigation systems that can reduce fuel consumption by optimizing travel routes. A fourth level, "generalized function," would include the design of complete living and communication systems, including "smart houses." At this level the application of information technology has the potential to change in fundamental ways how people work, travel, communicate, and live.
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From page 171... ...
The provision of new roads has encouraged more people to drive into the city, and the appearance of large, empty roads has stimulated the development of housing to make use of them. Highway safety provides another example of how an effort to reduce an undesirable effect of human behavior can itself have unanticipated consequences for human behavior.
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From page 172... ...
Human factors research can be applied to the goal of reversing undesirable trends in environmental change in other ways as well. It can help extend our understanding of how human behavior causes environmental change; and it can contribute to the development of more effective tools for use in the study of environmental change; and it can help assess the effectiveness of efforts to modify undesirable current trends.
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From page 173... ...
Laws prohibiting smoking in public places encountered enormous initial resistance despite the evidence that smoking, including breathing secondhand smoke, is injurious to health. Dealing effectively with these kinds of issues is, at least in part, a human factors problem.
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From page 174... ...
New York: Plenum. 1987 Environmental psychology and applied behavior analysis: from strange bedfel lows to a productive marriage.
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From page 175... ...
1988 The challenge of acid rain. Scientific American 259(2)
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From page 176... ...
1989 Threats to biodiversity. Scientific American 261(3)
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