We had a very nice online event with Wendy Rogers. Her talk was entitled “Recent advances in design of robots to support successful ageing”, took place on December 2nd, 2021. A recording of this webinar is available to our members after login.
The HFES EC Executive Committee
A recording of Steve Fairclough’s webinar “The Role of the Prefrontal Cortex & Functional Connectivity during Watchkeeping and Collision Avoidance during Maritime Operations: An fNIRS study” is now available.
We are happy to announce a Spring online event ” A Discussion with Don Norman” that will take place on April 27th, 2021 at 5 PM (CEST).
If you want to attend, please, subscribe before April 23th here
The online meeting is limited in number of attendees!
We are looking forward to meeting Don and you,
The HFES EC Executive Committee
Officers 2021-2023
In 2020 new officers were elected for the period 2021-2023. The new president of the HFES Europe Chapter is Antonella Toffetti from STELLANTIS – CRF From 2014-2016 Antonella was also president of the Europe Chapter.
Antonella Toffetti, president
Stephen Fairclough (Liverpool John Moores University) is secretary
Stephen Fairclough, secretary
Karel Brookhuis (University of Groningen) is treasurer
Karel Brookhuis, treasurer
Three directors serve the chapter: Linda Onnasch (Humboldt Univerity Berlin), Rebecca Wiczorek (TU Berlin), and Denis Coelho (Jönköping University)
Linda Onnasch, Rebecca Wiczorek, and Denis Coelho, directors
Apart from the president, treasurer and the three directors the past-president (Stefan Röttger, German Naval Medical Institute), and past secretary (Dick de Waard, University of Groningen) are also members of the executive council
Stefan Röttger, past president, and Dick de Waard, past secretary
The 2023 Annual Meeting keynote speech will be delivered by Frank Flemisch, Professor of Human Systems Integration, RWTH Aachen University.
Human Factors, Ergonomics and Human Systems Integration for biological and artificial intelligence and cognition
Both Human Factors & Ergonomics as the meanwhile classical discipline to address human issues with technology, and it’s younger sister discipline human systems integration, addressing the systemic integration of human, technology, organization and the environment, started in the last millennium where the human was thought to be the only source of intelligence in a system.
At the end of the last millennium, with the conception of cybernetics and AI in the 1950ties, more and more researcher started to dream that machines might become intelligent as well. Now, still at the beginning of a new millennium, humans develop machines with cognitive capabilities, which surpasses human capabilities in more and more domains. While one part of the scientific community and of the public still thinks that machines will never outsmart the human, another part of the community is already developing autonomous systems which replace humans, and intelligent chat programs, which becomes virtually undistinguishable from humans.
I will at first try to shake up the sleeping part of the community with a couple of striking recent examples. Bypassing the discussion on whether machines can really have human intelligence, it will base the discussion on the scientifically more grounded concept of cognition and its role in cybernetic feedback loops. Inspired by Wieners book on cybernetics as the control in animals and machines, a model is introduced, which originally started in the military domain and its discussion about the control of AI, and generalize this into a holistic model of biological and artificial cognition.
Instead of talking about an unavoidable fate of technology, e.g. in form of a singularity (Kurzweil) or Superintelligence (Transhumanism/Nick Bostrom), I will develop a perspective of critical optimism that we humans still have an influence on how non-biological cognition is used. A couple of key challenges and potential solutions like joint and cooperative cognition and its technical and ergonomics counterparts cooperative automation, cooperative AI and reversible symbiotic systems are sketched. Not surprisingly, Human Factors & Ergonomics and Human Systems Integration can contribute significantly to balance human, technical, organizational and environmental cognition in a way that we can assert our role as homo sapiens but only if we wake up. It is not too late, but time is up.
I’ve uploaded a few photos of the April conference in Turin. If you have more (or nicer ones) to add, please email me: d.de.waard<at>hfes-europe.org! (Photos are here). Size was reduced quite a lot, just email me if you would like to receive one or a couple in higher quality.
Patrick Ebel received the 2023 early career award in Liverpool, England, and Olger Siebinga received the 2nd prize. Information about the 2024 award will appear this page.
Marc Schwarzkopf, winner 2023 in Liverpool
