Az alabbiakban tovabbitom a Helsinki Egyetem Pszichologiai Tanszek
Kozlekedespszichologiai Csoport vezetoje (Dr. Heikki Summala) levelet,
melyben doktori hallgatot (esetleg post-doc kutatot) keres legalabb egy evre.
Ha valakit erdekel, forduljon kozvetlenul az allasleiras vegen talalhato
e-mail cimen (telefonon vagy levelben) Dr. Summalahoz. Ha a helyszinrol
tovabbi hatterinformaciokra lenne szukseg, igyekszem e-mailen valaszolni.
Udvozlettel
Winkler Istvan (Winkler(a)cogpsyphy.hu)
Dear Istvan:
This is to ask for your help. I am searching for a doctoral student (or a
post-doc) in the field of MMI of the car driver, or possibly in a somewhat
broader context of driver behavior and safety, in my university-funded
project on measurement of driver skills and abilities (also including
screening of esp. attentional problems in brain-injured and elderly people
which comes close to your experimental settings in the lab).
Actually I have a 12-months grant of 66.000 FIM available for a foreign
researcher. The grant comes from the exchange program by Center for
International MObility (CIMO). It was orginally for a Chinese doctoral
student graduated in ergonomics from the University of Technology at
Loughborough last September, but unfortunately he decided to return to
China due to family reasons. CIMO decided however to allow this grant to
my unit for some other foreign researcher and, now, I have to find a good
candidate.
A grant of about 6000 FIM/month is not much, and in spite of many inquiries
from those in the IAAP/Traffic network members I have no good candidate
now. I do contact you for obvious reasons: you know this Department and
this fund might be more competitive for some young Hungarian than for
people from higher economy countries. (Is this still correct?)
So I ask you to check whether you know good people with psychology,
ergonomics, or even engineering background who could be interested in
driver behavior and safety issues, and to deliver this information to
interested people. There are several possibilities to start a doctoral
thesis (e.g. the project on the use of peripheral vision, see the enclosed
abstract). There are good chances to get further funding for good people
in this field, and the Finnish Graduate School in Psychology also started
just now, providing 4-yrs grants for "contract-free" basic research for
doctoral students--my unit is one of those accepted for that program.
The main focus in our research is in the hard field methods, both
unobtrusive and obtrusive (with an instrumented car), although laboratory
methods - experimental and partial simulations - are being developed
gradually, too. Just now, Mitsubishi Motors Co has donated us a new car,
with an advanced distance measurement (and warning) system installed in it,
to be instrumented for our research purposes. Nokia (which is the second
in the world with their mobile telephones and the first one with OEM audio
equipment for the car manufacturers) will provide us the prototype of their
new integrated control unit for the MMI and feasibility tests. In this new
car, we plan to start some physiological measurements, too, both for
research on fatigue/attention and stress or work load.
At the other end, we are measuring and testing driver skills and abilities
among brain injured and low vision people. (We try to raise long-term
service in this field.) Our brand-new results expectedly show that
traditional neurological tests do not predict divided-attention problems on
the road and, therefore, new computer-controlled tests are urgently needed
for screening.
Best regards
Heikki
Encl.
RESEARCH GRANT AVAILABLE
A research grant of 12 months is provisionally available in the traffic
reseach unit of the Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki for a
doctoral or post-doc researcher in the field of MAN-MACHINE INTERFACE OF
THE CAR DRIVER, and ATTENTION PROBLEMS IN CAR DRIVING, including both basic
and applied research problems. For an example of projects in progress, see
the enclosed abstract (the report is available on request). Please contact
me for further information.
Heikki Summala
Encl.
Summala, H., Nieminen, T. & and Punto, M. Effects of the in-car task's
cognitive load and eccentricity on lane-keeping: drivers learn the use of
peripheral vision. University of Helsinki, Department of Psychology,
Traffic Research Unit, Reports 28:1994.
Abstract
Much research on driver attention, including evaluations of in-car
equipment, at least implicitly assumes that attention is where the gaze
is. Research on the dynamics of visual attention, however, suggests that
drivers may both use peripheral vision and learn its use, depending on the
(primary and secondary) task demands and eccentricity. To investigate
effects of task load and position on lane keeping, 27 subjects, 11 novices
and 16 experienced drivers, were asked to drive along a straight stretch of
road using only peripheral vision for lane-keeping while doing another task
foveally. The task varied in position, forcing different eccentricities
for lane keeping, and in mental load at two difficulty levels in two
different tasks. In the visual attention tasks, the position had a clearly
different effect on lane-keeping performance among novices and the
experienced in terms of the distance covered before crossing a lane
boundary. Novices' performance deteriorated with the foveal task at near
periphery at the speedometer level, deviating 23 deg from the normal line
of sight, whereas the performance of experienced drivers only dropped when
the foveal task was down in the middle console, at 38 deg eccentricity.
The result supports the hypothesis, based on eye-movement registrations,
that novices need foveal vision at first for lane-keeping but, with
increasing practice, learn to manage with more peripheral vision. A
prominent change appears to happen between the first 5,000 and 50,000 km of
driving. In the arithmetic tasks however, no consistent
experience-dependent task position effects occurred. Different results
obtained for different tasks imply that when evaluating in-car facilities,
the task characteristics and the respective resources needed should be
carefully taken into account.
Heikki Summala, PhD Heikki.Summala(a)helsinki.fi (email)
Professor of Traffic Psychology
Department of Psychology +358 0 191-3450 (tel)
P.O. Box 11 (Ritarikatu 5) +358 0 191-3443 (fax)
00014 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
Finland