Guidelines and Caveats for Manipulating Expectancies in Experiments Involving Human Participants

Abstract

In a number of domains involving decision making under high time pressure, the appearance of an unexpected critical event can startle operators causing errors that may potentially lead to a chain reaction of unfavorable events. Simulating such situations in a laboratory requires overcoming several challenges tied to human responses to unexpected and rare critical events. We discuss cases of experimental studies that have incorporated simulations, critical events, interruptions, predictive displays and ecological displays involving naïve and expert participants. We spell out guidelines and caveats pertaining to training, expertise, temporal variables, critical event frequencies, scenario design, mediator and moderator variables to name a few. The guidelines and caveats may inform researchers in the design of generalizable and reproducible experiments and in the analysis of data.

Protocol for Usability Testing and Validation of the ISO Draft International Standard 19223 for Lung Ventilators

“…Nonroutine scenarios or nonroutine events are events that would appear to be atypical to health care providers, may cause disruptions in the process of care delivery, and may result in cognitive deliberation in addition to what a routine event may demand; they also represent a class of events broader than adverse events [ 18 ]. Nonroutine events or scenarios can be helpful in capturing dysfunctional aspects of a clinical system or its perils [ 18 ], and could challenge cognitive processes and decision making [ 19 ]. Examples of routine scenarios are listed below; however, the scenarios in the final experiment will be different from the examples.…”