We are studying cognitive and behavioral characteristics of humans and social systems, and exploring system design methodologies using various simulation techniques in order for realizing reliable, safe, and secure socio-technological systems.

Research topics

1. Human modeling

   Understanding and predicting human behavior are the most basic issues for human-centered design of artifacts. By means of cognitive experiment and computer simulation, we are trying to establish human models that represent mechanism of human behavior in realistic settings and then to develop engineering tools for applying the models to human-centered design. In particular, a human model of an air traffic controller is the main topic of our present research.

   Inoue, S., Aoyama, H., Kageyama, K., and Furuta, K., Task Analysis for Safety Assessment in En-Route Air Traffic Control, Proc. 13th Int. Symp. on Aviation Psychology, Oklahoma, USA, 253-258 (2005).
2. Socio-technological study for risk-aware society

   The more people are concerned about safety and security, the more risk management that considers not only technical but also social aspects of safety is expected. We are therefore studying simulation of disaster response, the electronic public sphere for promoting consensus development, and social simulation of public opinion dynamics or safety related social institutions.

   Kanno, T., Morimoto, Y., and Furuta, K., A Distributed Multi-Agent Simulation System of Emergency Response in Disasters, Int. J. Risk Assessment and Management, 6, 4/5/6, 528-554 (2006).
3. Assessment of team performance

   Since most activities in industry, transportation, medicine, and disaster prevention are performed by groups of humans, team corporation is a key factor for the total performance of system reliability and system safety. We are studying methodologies to assess team performance from a viewpoint of human reliability or situation awareness by means of experiment and simulation.

   Shu, Y., and Furuta, K., An inference method of team situation awareness based on mutual awareness, Int. J. Cognition, Technology, and Work, 7, 4, 272-287 (2005).
4. Intelligent human interface

   Relations between humans and machines are getting complex, and human-machine symbiosis is required to achieve high system reliability. For realizing good relations between humans and machines, intelligent and adaptive human interface that can support human activities based on intention inferencing is under development.

   Kanno, T., Nakata, K., and Furuta, K., A method for conflict detection based on team intention inference, Interacting with Computers, 18, 747-769 (2006).