Ergonomics: Chronological List of Papers, 1956-1969

Abstract

[DSc Thesis] Introduction: Ergonomics, the technology of work design is based on the human biological sciences: anatomy, physiology and psychology. In general terms, anatomy is concerned with the structure of the body (the size and the way it is constructed); physiology is concerned with the function of the body (the biological processes which maintain it); and psychology is concerned with behaviour (the adaptive responses of the organism to its environment ). The border lines between these disciplines are not rigid, e.g. functional anatomy which is the main topic from general anatomy of ergonomics interest could be regarded as physiology. Similarly, there are many adaptive mechanisms in the body, such as those concerned with homeostasis, which can be regarded as within either physiology or psychology, and in fact are often called physiological psychology. It may be objected that no one person can be fully competent in all these three sciences. In fact, only parts of them are relevant to ergonomics; unfortunately these parts are those which are probably given least attention in medical courses. In general the behaviour of the intact organism only is of interest. This is true for both anatomy and physiology. The micro-characteristics of muscle chemistry, for instance, are not directly relevant and certainly the pathology of these biological systems is outside the frame of reference of ergonomics, In the case of psychology, ergonomic interests are restricted to human psychology and also to healthy normal behaviour. The general approach is that used by the experimental psychologists, that is, the evidence and concepts used are those which have arisen from data acquired by controlled experimentation. In spite of these difficulties in separating areas of disciplines, some classification must be made if the subject is to be studied systematically. This book covers three topics of equal importance within ergonomics: the biology of work, the psychology of work and methods of studying work. The biology of work is described in Chapters 1 to 5. This section covers anatomical and physiological aspects and some concepts which are usually regarded as essentially psychological. The application of forces and the problems of size and posture are largely anatomical, the generation of energy and problems of climate can be regarded as mainly physiology. The study of effects of light, noise and vibration requires some appreciation of physiology and psychology and also the elementary physics of these phenomena. The psychology of work is described in Chapters 6-10, This section deals with behavioural aspects which depend mainly on psychological knowledge although some topics such as control design depend also on anatomy and others such as shift work have physiological and psychological components. From the point of view of the psychologist, man is an information processing device concerned with making decisions based on a variety of inputs and communicating these decisions by a variety of outputs. In some respects his behaviour is analogous to that of a computer but the analogy is not a close one since in the computer field there are no problems of arousal, fatigue and circadian rhythms. Because, unlike the computer, the human operator can function at many different levels of arousal, it is necessary to study the problems of motivation which in turn requires a study of financial and non-financial incentives and interactions between people. Variations in level of activity with time of day have relevance to problems of shift work, rest pauses and length of working day. These are highly complex questions to which there are never simple answers, but since these problems do arise in every industrial organization, some attempt must be made to deal with them even though only approximately. Methods of studying work are described in Chapters 11-15. A thorough knowledge of biological sciences is not in itself adequate to ensure competent performance as an ergonomist. Ergonomics is a technology, and by definition every technologist has a repertoire of specialized techniques which he is expected to understand and to utilize but which are not available to people not trained in this specialism. In ergonomics these techniques centre around the conduct of studies involving measurement of human performance. The expertise required in this field is different from that needed to do experiments in the physical sciences and it is also different from that needed for the acquisition of clinical evidence about individuals. Thus, although an ergonomist may have been trained as a doctor or an engineer, he cannot claim to be an ergonomist on either or both of these grounds alone. Since the evidence which is acquired from human performance studies is complex and multifactorial, its presentation is as important as its acquisition. All these techniques are dealt with in this section. Again, because of the complexity of the problems even the skilled ergonomist needs some guide to structure his thinking. This he can obtain partly from his understanding of the way the subject has developed and what it tries to cover and partly from an appreciation of the general pattern of ergonomics studies in relation to the design of work. That is, the common questions which arise in all work design and the order in which they occur. These topics are dealt with in the final chapter which is concerned with the history and philosophy of ergonomics.