Michael S . Wogalter | North Carolina State Univerisity (original) (raw)

Videos by Michael S . Wogalter

K. R. Laughery & M. S. Wogalter. This video was an invited presentation at the 2007 Human Factor... more K. R. Laughery & M. S. Wogalter. This video was an invited presentation at the 2007 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (Arnold Small Lecture in Safety). Professor Kenneth R. Laughery (Psychology, Rice University) describes what are warnings and what factors influence their effectiveness. In the second half, Professor Michael S. Wogalter (Psychology, North Carolina State University) describing the future of warnings. This video was produced by Dr. Michael J. Kalsher (Associate Professor, Cognitive Science, RPI).

18 views

Papers by Michael S . Wogalter

Work (Reading, Mass.), 2012

A scenario of an automotive accident caused by tire failure is given followed by a human factors ... more A scenario of an automotive accident caused by tire failure is given followed by a human factors analysis of the information available to consumers on tire aging. Consumers have not been told that the age of the tire is a safety concern. It is not easy to decode the date of manufacture on tires. More publicity and prominent warnings are needed to communicate the dangers of older tires. Also, better ways to present the date of manufacture so that consumers can more easily and accurately assess tire age are needed.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2002

A study was carried out using four measures of effectiveness to compare product warnings that are... more A study was carried out using four measures of effectiveness to compare product warnings that are consistent with the American National Standards Institute Product Safety Signs and Labels standard (ANSI Z535.4) to warnings that are not consistent with the standard. Inconsistent warnings were based on the format of existing product warnings. Two warnings, consistent and inconsistent, for each of ten different products were evaluated: cooking oil, trampoline, paint, dresser, airbag, seat belt, tire, sports utility vehicle, reclining seat and swimming pool. The four effectiveness criteria were judgments of noticeability, likelihood to read, understandability and likelihood of complying. Participants were 176 students with varied majors from five different universities. Results indicated higher levels of judged effectiveness for the warnings that were consistent with the ANSI standard. The differences were statistically significant for all four effectiveness measures for all ten product...

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 1993

hazard for images depicting before and during

Age-related changes in selective attention, inhibitory efficiency, and the ability to form new as... more Age-related changes in selective attention, inhibitory efficiency, and the ability to form new associations suggest that older adults may have greater difficulty with more complex and less comprehensible symbols. We examined comprehension of symbols varying in terms of ratings of familiarity, complexity, and comprehensibility, by younger (aged 18– 35) and older (aged 55–70) adults. It was found that older adults have greater difficulty than younger adults in comprehending warning symbols and that accident scenario training improves comprehension. Regression analyses indicated that familiarity and comprehensibility were important in determining performance on the pre-training comprehension test by both younger and older adults. However, training eliminated the effects of stimulus characteristics for younger adults, while older adults' comprehension continued to be significantly influenced by comprehensibility. We suggest that symbol design incorporates cues to knowledge to facili...

Web users must rely on their own judgment to determine the validity and reliability of website in... more Web users must rely on their own judgment to determine the validity and reliability of website information. The present research examined internet trust by evaluating student and non-student participant's beliefs about the credibility of information based on web domain names and whether participants could distinguish between the domain names of organizations that were actual or fictitious. Results indicated that participants had difficulty discriminating between actual and fictitious internet domain names. Potential implications regarding website credibility are discussed and possible interventions are described.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2000

This study examined the effects of message framing on behavioral compliance in the context of a b... more This study examined the effects of message framing on behavioral compliance in the context of a believable lab-based scenario designed to disguise the true purpose of the research. Participants were led to believe that the study's purpose was to improve the instructions that accompany consumer products requiring full or partial assembly and that they would perform a carpentry task that involved the use of several types of manual and power tools (e.g., a circular saw). The assembly instructions provided to them either did or did not contain a framing message. When it was present, the message was either framed positively (gain-frame) or negatively (loss-frame), or it merely instructed them to use personal protective equipment (PPEs) as directed by the on-product warning. An important outcome was the relatively high level of behavioral compliance observed. The message framing manipulation was not successful, but slightly higher levels of compliance were observed among participants in the loss-frame condition. Unexpectedly, level of experience (operating the circular saw) was positively related to compliance. This finding contrasts with the usual familiarity effects reported in other warnings research. Implications of this study for future research are discussed.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2000

Two experiments evaluated pictorial symbols intended to warn consumers of a child choking hazard.... more Two experiments evaluated pictorial symbols intended to warn consumers of a child choking hazard. In Experiment 1, participants used the Zwaga (1989) comprehension estimation procedure to estimate the percentage of the U.S. population they felt would understand the intended meaning of 15 symbols designed to depict a choking hazard. For the symbol with the highest comprehension estimate, participants indicated that 74% of the population would correctly interpret the intended meaning: choking. All of the top-rated symbols contained similar combinations of features, including crossed hands, a protruding tongue, and a frontal face orientation. But interestingly, symbols with lower comprehension estimates also contained a different set of similar features. In Experiment 2, small groups of participants constructed multiple panel choking hazard symbols from the set of 15 symbols in the first experiment. As in the first experiment, there was a high degree of consistency among participants' responses. Unexpectedly, the first and last symbols selected for this three-panel sequence were among symbols that received the lowest comprehension estimates in the first experiment. These findings seem to confirm that symbol comprehensibility can be influenced by context. Implications of this study for future research are discussed.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2000

The development and widespread use of sophisticated medical devices to help patients has also hur... more The development and widespread use of sophisticated medical devices to help patients has also hurt patients through operator error. Some of this error may be attributable to the quality of the labeling instructions that accompany these devices. Lessons learned from two decades of research on warnings may serve as a guide to development of effective medical device labeling practices. In this article, we highlight some of the issues associated with poor medical device labeling practices, suggest a framework for guiding development of medical device labeling practices based on the communication-human information processing model, and finally, present an example of a medical device for which better labeling and instructions are needed.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 1991

The present research examined whether eyewitness identification lineups produced by law enforceme... more The present research examined whether eyewitness identification lineups produced by law enforcement personnel are biased or suggestive. Experienced police officers were asked to construct two six-face photographic lineups, first using their usual (traditional) method, and second using an alternative method. The primary basis of the traditional method is that foils are selected based on their similarity to the target. The alternative method includes foils that are not only similar to the target but also similar to other foil faces in the lineup. Both types of lineups were shown to subjects who had not seen the faces before (mock witnesses) and were asked to guess the respective targets. The results showed that mock witnesses selected the targets significantly more often than expected by chance (1/6 probability) when embedded in the traditional lineups, thus demonstrating that these lineups were suggestive. Mock witnesses did not select alternative-method targets more often than expec...

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2000

This study examined allocations of blame for injuries sustained from the consumption of a product... more This study examined allocations of blame for injuries sustained from the consumption of a product with a non-obvious hazard. Participants were given product-use scenarios that described a girl whose age was manipulated to be from 18 months to 16 years and who suffered serious brain damage after choking on a marshmallow made available to her by her mother. Supplementary information intended to be either positive or detrimental to the manufacturer and its safety practices was either present or absent from the scenario. When present and positive, the manufacturer put a warning on the product about the non-obvious hazard. The warning was manipulated by having color or not and a multi-frame or single-frame pictorial. Results replicated findings reported initially by Kalsher et al. (1999). When supplementary information was positive or not provided, participants directed more blame toward the parents of the young victim and less to the manufacturer. The opposite pattern was shown when neg...

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 1998

Safety researchers have begun to systematically examine how people assign blame for injuries sust... more Safety researchers have begun to systematically examine how people assign blame for injuries sustained during the use of or exposure to consumer products. In this study we examine people's attributions in the context of product-use scenarios loosely based on the now famous incident in which a woman was scalded by hot coffee from McDonald's. Each scenario described a situation in which a person (driver or passenger) was burned when they spilled hot coffee on themselves while going to work. Supplementary information intended to be either positive or detrimental to McDonald's was either present or absent from the scenario. In general, participants allocated more responsibility to the consumer than to McDonald's. Depicting the consumer as the driver or passenger had no effect on participants' allocations. As expected, adding information that is detrimental to McDonald's shifted blame away from the consumer and toward McDonald's. Adding positive information ha...

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 1998

Research has shown that explicitly worded warnings are judged to be more effective than similar w... more Research has shown that explicitly worded warnings are judged to be more effective than similar warnings lacking explicitness. One possible way of increasing warning explicitness is to include injury outcome statistics in the warning statement. The heuristic processing model of persuasion would postulate that the impact of persuasive messages, like warnings, is influenced by heuristic cues such as the number and length of arguments and the presence of statistics. This research investigated the effect of embedding injury outcome statistics in the safety instructions for electric power tools. Warning statement recall and various rating judgments were measured. Results showed that the presence of statistics led to greater recall and higher ratings of warning importance, vividness, and explicitness. Implications for the design of consumer product warnings are discussed.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2014

Twenty-six standard safety colors specified by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), ... more Twenty-six standard safety colors specified by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), International Standards Organization (ISO), and the Federal Highway Association (FHWA) were compared to seven fluorescent and neon colors on perceived hazard and perceived importance. Results indicated that the fluorescent orange, ANSI red, fluorescent yellow, FHWA red, fluorescent yellow green, and ISO red were the highest rated colors on perceived hazard. ANSI red, FHWA red, ISO red, fluorescent orange, fluorescent yellow, and fluorescent yellow green were rated the highest on perceived importance. The implications of these findings and the potential use of fluorescent colors in product warnings are discussed.

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Determining the most effective modality or combination of modalities for presenting time sensitiv... more Determining the most effective modality or combination of modalities for presenting time sensitive information to operators in complex environments is critical to effective display design. This panel of display design experts will briefly review the most important empirical research regarding the key issues to be considered including the temporal demands of the situation, the complexity of the information to be presented, and issues of information reliability and trust. Included in the discussion will be a focus on the relative benefits and potential costs of providing information in one modality versus another and under what conditions it may be preferable to use a multisensory display. Key issues to be discussed among panelists and audience members will be the implications of the existing knowledge for facilitating the design of alerts and warnings in complex environments such as aviation, driving, medicine and educational settings.

PsycEXTRA Dataset

ABSTRACT Although symbols or pictorials are increasingly being used to communicate warning inform... more ABSTRACT Although symbols or pictorials are increasingly being used to communicate warning information, people’s comprehension of them is not guaranteed and sometimes can be quite low. The current study sought to determine whether adding colored highlighting to the relevant components of a pictorial benefits comprehension of the warning. There were three highlighting conditions: more relevant parts were highlighted, less relevant parts were highlighted, or no highlighting. Each participant was shown pictorials in each of the three highlighting conditions and asked to write a short description about what each pictorial communicates. The results showed that participants were more likely to correctly understand the intended conceptual meaning of pictorials when the most relevant parts were highlighted in comparison to the other two conditions. Highlighting less relevant parts led to poorer comprehension than no highlighting at all. Appropriately color highlighting relevant parts of complex pictorial symbols could be a useful method of enhancing comprehension.

18 views

Work (Reading, Mass.), 2012

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2002

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 1993

hazard for images depicting before and during

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2000

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 1991

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2000

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 1998

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 2014

PsycEXTRA Dataset

This study evaluated whether high or low salience product manual warning formats resulted in diff... more This study evaluated whether high or low salience product manual warning formats resulted in different frequencies of both reading and warning recall accuracy. Both experimental conditions constituted an amalgamation of warning and product manual format features. The low salience condition was comprised of a capitalized signal word, paragraph prose-style warning text, warnings integrated with page content with low salience visual cues whereas the high salience condition included an icon, signal word panel, bulleted warning text, warnings placed separately at the page bottom with high salience visual cues. Eye movements were recorded while participants read pages from product manuals followed by a warning recall test. No significant difference in the number of warnings read was found but visual cues in the high salience condition shifted foveal vision to the warnings significantly more often than the cues in the low salience condition. Warning recall was higher in the low salience condition than in the high salience condition, probably because of the particular task and formatting used. Caveats and study implications are discussed.

Handbook of Warnings, 2006

Book with numerous chapter concerning warning signs and labels.

Human Factors Perspectives on Warnings, Volume 2: Selections from Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meetings 1993 - 2000, 2001

Book contains 59 short research-based article on warnings and associated concept published in the... more Book contains 59 short research-based article on warnings and associated concept published in the Human Factors Society Annual Meetings.

Ergonomics and Musculoskeletal Disorders: RESEARCH ON MANUAL MATERIALS-HANDLING, 1983-1996, 1998

Injuries associated with manual materials handling (MMH) represent the single largest source of l... more Injuries associated with manual materials handling (MMH) represent the single largest source of losse many industries, costing billions of dollars for workers' compensation, medical care, and lost wages. These losses explain why the research directed toward the prevention of MMH-related injuries in the industrial workplace has been one of the most active areas of the field of industrial ergonomics. This book contains 61 of the best papers (selected from 120 candidate papers) from 14 years of HFES Annual Meeting proceedings, one of the foremost sources of basic and applied research in this area.

Human Factors Perspectives on Human-Computer Interaction, 1995

Collection of numerous articles from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (pre... more Collection of numerous articles from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting (pre-1995)