Tag: thesis

Title: Investigating Older Adults’ Trust, Causal Attributions, and Perception of Capabilities in Robots as a Function of Robot Appearance, Task, and Reliability
Committee: Dr. Richard Pak (Chair), Dr. Kelly Caine, and Dr. Patrick Rosopa
When: Thursday, March 24, 2016 at 10:30am
Where: Brackett Hall, Room 419

Abstract: The purpose of the current study was to examine the extent to which the appearance, task, and reliability of a robot is susceptible to stereotypic thinking. Stereotypes can influence the types of causal attributions that people make about the performance of others. Just as causal attributions may affect an individual’s perception of other people, it may similarly affect perceptions of technology. Stereotypes can also influence perceived capabilities of others. That is, in situations where stereotypes are activated, an individual’s perceived capabilities are typically diminished. The tendency to adjust perceptions of capabilities of others may translate into levels of trust placed in the individual’s abilities. A cross-sectional factorial survey using video vignettes was used to assess young adults’ and older adults’ attitudes toward a robot’s behavior and appearance. Trust and capability ratings of the robot were affected by participant age, reliability, and domain. Patterns of causal reasoning within the human-robot interaction (HRI) context differed from causal reasoning patterns found in human-human interaction.

Title: The Effects of Age and Working Memory Demands on Automation-Induced Complacency
Committee: Dr. Richard Pak (Chair), Dr. Kelly Caine, and Dr. Patrick Rosopa
When: Tuesday, March 22, 2016 at 10:30am
Where: Brackett Hall, Room 419

Abstract: Complacency refers to a type of automation use expressed as insufficient monitoring and verification of automated functions. Previous studies have attempted to identify the age-related factors that influence complacency during interaction with automation. However, little is known about the role of age-related differences in working memory capacity and its connection to complacent behaviors. The current study examined whether working memory demand of an automated task and age-related differences in cognitive ability influence complacency. Working memory demand was manipulated in the task with two degrees of automation (i.e., information and decision). A younger and older age group was included to observe the effects of differences in working memory capacity on performance in a targeting task using an automated aid. The results of the study show that younger and older adults did not significantly differ in complacent behavior for information or decision automation. Also, individual differences in working memory capacity did not predict complacency in the automated task. However, these findings do not disprove the role of working memory in automation-induced complacency. Both age groups were more complacent with automation that had less working memory demand. Our findings suggest systems that utilize both higher and lower degrees of automation could limit over-dependence. These results provide implications for the design of automated interfaces.

Jessica Branyon Thesis Proposal

Committee: Dr. Richard Pak (chair), Dr. Patrick Rosopa, and Dr. Kelly Caine

When: Wednesday, February 18th, 2014 at 12 pm

Where: Brackett 419

Title: Investigating Older Adults’ Trust, Causal Attributions, and Perception of Capabilities in Robots as a Function of Robot Appearance, Task, and Reliability

Abstract: The purpose of the current study is to examine the extent to which the appearance, task, and reliability of a robot is susceptible to stereotypic thinking. When interacting with technology, people focus on human-like qualities of the technology more than the asocial nature of the interaction, attributing human-like qualities such as personality, mindfulness, and social characteristics. The attribution of human-like qualities makes technology susceptible to stereotyping based on appearance and etiquette. Stereotypes can influence the types of causal attributions that people make about the performance of others. Just as causal attributions may affect an individual’s perception of other people, it may similarly affect perceptions of technology. Stereotypes can also influence perceived capabilities of others. That is, in situations where stereotypes are activated, an individual’s perceived capabilities are typically diminished. The tendency to adjust perceptions of capabilities of others may translate into levels of trust placed in the individual’s abilities. A cross-sectional factorial survey using video vignettes will be utilized to assess young adults’ and older adults’ attitudes toward a robot’s behavior and appearance. We hypothesize that a robot’s older appearance will result in lower levels of trust, more dispositional attributions, and lower perceptions of capabilities while high reliability should positively impact trust.

Natalee has successfully defended her thesis:
The Effects of Reminder Distinctiveness and Anticipatory Interval on Prospective Memory

Abstract: Prospective memory failures (or failures to remember a future intention) can result in a wide range of negative consequences. The use of reminders has been shown to improve the rate of PM successes. The aim of the current study was to examine the effectiveness of reminders based on their type (text or picture) and their timing. We hypothesized that successful PM performance would be successfully maintained over longer anticipatory intervals when paired with picture reminders rather than with simple text reminders because of the inherent distinctiveness of pictures. We also expected that performance for younger adults would be better than that of older adults except in conditions pairing a long anticipatory interval with a picture reminder. We expected that in these conditions, performance for younger and older adults would be statistically similar. While our hypotheses were not fully confirmed, there were significant effects of reminder type on both form errors and clock checks, such that younger adults had less form errors when presented with picture reminders and both age groups exhibited increased clock checking behavior with the use of such reminders. These findings suggest that arousal and task vigilance are benefited with the use of picture reminders which could have simple, yet powerful design implications for reminder devices.

Committee: Dr. Richard Pak (Chair), Dr. Patrick Rosopa, and Dr. Paul Merritt
When: Monday, October 20th, 2014 at 11am
Where: Brackett 419

Title of Thesis: The Effects of Age and Working Memory Demands on Automation-Induced Complacency
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Richard Pak
Thesis Committee Members: Dr. Richard Pak, Dr. Patrick Rosopa, and Dr. Kelly Caine
Date, Time, and Location: Monday, August 4th at 10:00 a.m., Brackett 419

Abstract:
Complacency refers to a type of automation use expressed as insufficient monitoring and verification of automated functions. Previous studies have attempted to identify the age-related factors that influence complacency during interaction with automation. However, little is known about the role of age-related differences in working memory capacity and its connection to complacent behaviors. The current study aims to examine whether working memory demand of an automated task and age-related differences in cognitive ability influence complacency. Higher degrees of automation (DOA) have been shown to reduce cognitive workload and may be used to manipulate working memory demand of a task. Thus, we hypothesize that a lower DOA (i.e. information acquisition stage with lower level) will demand more working memory than a higher DOA (i.e. decision selection stage with higher level) and that a lower DOA will result in a greater difference in complacency between age groups than a higher DOA.

ABSTRACT: Prospective memory (PM) failures (or failures to remember a future intention) can result in a wide range of negative consequences. The use of reminders has been shown to improve the rate of PM successes. The current study aims to examine the effectiveness of reminders based on their type (text or picture) and their timing. We hypothesize that successful PM performance will be maintained over longer anticipatory intervals when paired with picture reminders rather than with simple text reminders because of their inherent distinctiveness. Prior research has shown increased memory for PM intentions when distinctiveness was high.

Committee: Rich Pak (chair), Patrick Rosopa, Paul Merritt
Wednesday, November 20th at 12:30pm in Brackett 414.

Faces as Ambient Displays: Assessing the Attention-Demanding Characteristics of Facial Expressions

Thesis Defense

Dr. Richard Pak (Advisor), Dr. Leo Gugerty, Dr. Christopher Pagano

Ambient displays are used to provide information to users in a non-distracting manner. The purpose of this research was to examine the efficacy of facial expressions as a method of conveying information to users in an unobtrusive way. Facial expression recognition requires very little if any conscious attention from the user, which makes it an excellent candidate for the ambient presentation of information. Specifically, the current study quantified the amount of attention required to decode and recognize various facial expressions. The current study assessed the attention-demanding characteristics of facial expressions using the dual-task experiment paradigm. Results from the experiment suggest that Chernoff facial expressions are decoded with the most accuracy when happy facial expressions are used. There was also an age-effect on decoding accuracy; indicating younger adults had higher facial expression decoding performance compared to older adults. The observed decoding advantages for happy facial expressions and younger adults in the single-task were maintained in the dual-task. The dual-task paradigm revealed that the decoding of Chernoff facial expressions required more attention (i.e., longer response times and more face misses) than hypothesized, and did not evoke attention-free decoding. Chernoff facial expressions do not appear to be good ambient displays due to their attention-demanding nature.

1 pm, Monday December 16th, 419 Brackett