Human Factors Laboratory

The laboratory is designed to address key challenges in the areas of: Human Factors engineering and decision support systems in process control contexts (e.g., in Nuclear power stations and Traffic Control Centres) and Command and Control information systems performance and experimentation. 

The increasingly dynamic, complex and information rich environments of joint operations, crisis management and aerospace present a critical need for research aimed at augmenting human performance. To achieve such augmentation requires reliable metrics that provide unobtrusive, objective, predictive and diagnostic information at the individual and team level. The laboratory offers a sophisticated infrastructure that creates an immersive environment for simulation.

The multidisciplinary laboratory team (which includes academic staff, postgraduate and undergraduate students) as well as strong external links allows the realisation of projects from their conceptual basis through to their impact. Current projects include; hyper-brain markers of successful joint action, behavioural detection of insider threat, exploration of the impact of visual-perceptual training on human surveillance performance and, design and effectiveness of auditory alarms to manage task interruptions.