Presentation
PS5 - How might we write about (the) human factor(s)?
DescriptionIntroduction:
Difficulty in recognizing linguistic misalignment during discussion has the potential to disrupt productive interaction among speakers. However, linguistic alignment is critical for effective communication (Branigan et al., 2010). Divergent meanings of words and phrases and attendant implicatures can contribute to linguistic misalignment. Identifying and describing differences in linguistic features could highlight divergent meanings around specific terms, thus uncovering divergent assumptions within a communicating group. In describing possible semantic differences, we open up the possibility of designing systems for detecting and identifying these variances. With this knowledge, it becomes possible to facilitate language awareness amongst team members, design systems that speak the users’ language, and foster alignment.
"The human factor" and "human factors" are sometimes used synonymously but also may have different meanings or at the very least different implications. This work examines the context around the human factor and human factors in describing differences in neighboring words and syntax while discussing the possibility of divergent meanings. One purpose of this work is to explore how some textual information may emphasize humans as a weakness within the system whereas other context may more neutrally or positively describe characteristics of the intersection between humans and other systems features. Words and language that suggest a human is primarily to blame for any given issue lead us toward certain sets of solutions and away from others and come with humanistic, ethical, and social costs. When blame is cast on users or humans, rather than bringing attention to issues within the greater socio-technical system, critical and latent design issues can be overlooked. In addition, focusing blame on humans and users can be counterproductive by hampering aspects of human resiliency that contribute to systems strengths.
In this paper, we uncover the contextual complexity behind these terms while bringing attention to how differences in semantic and connotational differences may contribute to linguistic misalignment and challenges to communication. Identifying and describing this space opens up the possibility for discussing, addressing, and designing mitigation strategies. One aim of this work is to begin to describe and bring awareness to the use of polysemous words and phrases within the scientific and medical communities. A second aim is to iterate and improve on a collection of approaches for describing diverse word usage and ambiguities within our work and across the professions. Information about term ambiguity could help with designing systems for identifying instances of linguistic misalignment as a step in facilitating effective dialog. In addition, greater awareness of nuances around word selection may help human factors and ergonomics professionals adjust when communicating practices and principles to non-human factors professionals.
Approach:
To accomplish this aim, we used PubMed to search for and extract Medline titles and abstracts in the context of healthcare literature. We retrieved abstracts that contained the terms "the human factor" and "human factors". (PubMed queries will be included in the presentation and proceedings paper.) Although we fine-tuned the PubMed queries, the data still required cleansing to exclude abstracts retrieved due to the presence of protein and gene nomenclature (e.g. human factor Xa).
After data cleansing, we extracted sentences that included the human factor and human factors. Several natural language pipelines were explored using different techniques for viewing and comparing linguistic features within the corpora. To perform this analysis, we gathered basic linguistic statistics, extracted local features (Mihalcea & Nastase, 2012), contrastive features (Arnold, 2022), co-occurrences, and sentiments. We then modeled usages of the terms using topic modelling. Visualizations of the linguistics features were reviewed using a team-based text analytics approach (Arnold et al., 2023). We used a corpus viewer to examine features in context and collected narrative examples to share with readers.
Findings: (some initial quotes extracted)
There were 481 initial titles/abstracts returned when querying for the term "the human factor" and 5,909 results for "human factors". We separated the results at the sentence level, capturing 361 sentences containing the term "the human factor", representing roughly five percent of sentences, and 7001 sentences with "human factors". For the local features, we collected concordances composed of three words to the left and right of the target term; function words were excluded. Results represent words in the left/right 3-word window and are as follows:
• "the human factor" (human, factor, accidents, safety, management, analysis, importance, errors, development, study, role, aviation)
• "human factors" (human, factors, ergonomics, design, engineering, safety, analysis, research, system, systems)
The contrastive analysis included identifying and extracting unique words found co-occurring with the corpus associated with one target term and absent from the corpus associated with the other term. Because of the imbalanced or skewed class proportion with the two initial target terms, we focused on the unique terms within the larger set that contained human factors as the focal element. The resulting uniquely co-occurring word network visualization (image will be provided in presentation and proceedings paper) of word usage around the term "human factors" points to the contextual complexity regarding systems thinking and the conceptualizations that ensue in human factors work such as:
• multidisciplinary, team, members
• applying, principles
• situational, awareness
• biomedical, informatics
• cognitive, workload
• HFE
• perspective
• task
• equipment
After identifying some key linguistic features for each grouping, we collected terms used in different contexts. One form, "the human factor", collected was comprised of an article the and the singular form the human factor and commonly contextualized as the state of being human. Another was the pluralized and sometimes capitalized form "Human Factors" commonly referring to:
• Some states of being human or involving human limitations (and capabilities), or
• A noun describing a discipline. Definition adopted by the International Ergonomics Society:
“Ergonomics (or human factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.” (International Ergonomics Association, 2023), or
• An adjective describing a set of practices and principles for approaching the inquiry into, design, and evaluation of socio-technical systems.
As a team we walked through different linguistic visualizations and reviewed terms within context. (Additional terms in context will be provided in the presentation and proceedings paper)
"the human factor":
• “In the future, robotic approaches will probably replace current surgical techniques using cutting guides and help reduce intraoperative inaccuracies due to the human factor.” (Wojcik et al., 2023)
• “The human factor is one of the biggest security threats to health information systems (HIS).” (Sari et al., 2023)
• “Importantly, in an era of growing technicalization and use of AI algorithms, ICT doctors may safeguard the human factor in medicine.” (Jongen, 2022)
"Human Factors or human factors":
• “Transitioning from one EHR to another constitutes a major organizational change that requires nearly every person in the organization to change how they do their work. Future research should include human factors as well as diverse methodological approaches such as mixed methods and implementation science.” (Miake-Lye et al., 2023)
• Cognitive ergonomics is the branch of human factors and ergonomics (HFE) focused on supporting the cognitive processes of individuals within a system. (Li-Wang et al., 2023)
• “To provide standardized recommendations for the emergency department (ED) response to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) events by combining the human factors/ergonomics method of hierarchical task analysis with the theoretical framework for Work as Imagined versus Work as Done.” (Razak et al., 2023)
Difficulty in recognizing linguistic misalignment during discussion has the potential to disrupt productive interaction among speakers. However, linguistic alignment is critical for effective communication (Branigan et al., 2010). Divergent meanings of words and phrases and attendant implicatures can contribute to linguistic misalignment. Identifying and describing differences in linguistic features could highlight divergent meanings around specific terms, thus uncovering divergent assumptions within a communicating group. In describing possible semantic differences, we open up the possibility of designing systems for detecting and identifying these variances. With this knowledge, it becomes possible to facilitate language awareness amongst team members, design systems that speak the users’ language, and foster alignment.
"The human factor" and "human factors" are sometimes used synonymously but also may have different meanings or at the very least different implications. This work examines the context around the human factor and human factors in describing differences in neighboring words and syntax while discussing the possibility of divergent meanings. One purpose of this work is to explore how some textual information may emphasize humans as a weakness within the system whereas other context may more neutrally or positively describe characteristics of the intersection between humans and other systems features. Words and language that suggest a human is primarily to blame for any given issue lead us toward certain sets of solutions and away from others and come with humanistic, ethical, and social costs. When blame is cast on users or humans, rather than bringing attention to issues within the greater socio-technical system, critical and latent design issues can be overlooked. In addition, focusing blame on humans and users can be counterproductive by hampering aspects of human resiliency that contribute to systems strengths.
In this paper, we uncover the contextual complexity behind these terms while bringing attention to how differences in semantic and connotational differences may contribute to linguistic misalignment and challenges to communication. Identifying and describing this space opens up the possibility for discussing, addressing, and designing mitigation strategies. One aim of this work is to begin to describe and bring awareness to the use of polysemous words and phrases within the scientific and medical communities. A second aim is to iterate and improve on a collection of approaches for describing diverse word usage and ambiguities within our work and across the professions. Information about term ambiguity could help with designing systems for identifying instances of linguistic misalignment as a step in facilitating effective dialog. In addition, greater awareness of nuances around word selection may help human factors and ergonomics professionals adjust when communicating practices and principles to non-human factors professionals.
Approach:
To accomplish this aim, we used PubMed to search for and extract Medline titles and abstracts in the context of healthcare literature. We retrieved abstracts that contained the terms "the human factor" and "human factors". (PubMed queries will be included in the presentation and proceedings paper.) Although we fine-tuned the PubMed queries, the data still required cleansing to exclude abstracts retrieved due to the presence of protein and gene nomenclature (e.g. human factor Xa).
After data cleansing, we extracted sentences that included the human factor and human factors. Several natural language pipelines were explored using different techniques for viewing and comparing linguistic features within the corpora. To perform this analysis, we gathered basic linguistic statistics, extracted local features (Mihalcea & Nastase, 2012), contrastive features (Arnold, 2022), co-occurrences, and sentiments. We then modeled usages of the terms using topic modelling. Visualizations of the linguistics features were reviewed using a team-based text analytics approach (Arnold et al., 2023). We used a corpus viewer to examine features in context and collected narrative examples to share with readers.
Findings: (some initial quotes extracted)
There were 481 initial titles/abstracts returned when querying for the term "the human factor" and 5,909 results for "human factors". We separated the results at the sentence level, capturing 361 sentences containing the term "the human factor", representing roughly five percent of sentences, and 7001 sentences with "human factors". For the local features, we collected concordances composed of three words to the left and right of the target term; function words were excluded. Results represent words in the left/right 3-word window and are as follows:
• "the human factor" (human, factor, accidents, safety, management, analysis, importance, errors, development, study, role, aviation)
• "human factors" (human, factors, ergonomics, design, engineering, safety, analysis, research, system, systems)
The contrastive analysis included identifying and extracting unique words found co-occurring with the corpus associated with one target term and absent from the corpus associated with the other term. Because of the imbalanced or skewed class proportion with the two initial target terms, we focused on the unique terms within the larger set that contained human factors as the focal element. The resulting uniquely co-occurring word network visualization (image will be provided in presentation and proceedings paper) of word usage around the term "human factors" points to the contextual complexity regarding systems thinking and the conceptualizations that ensue in human factors work such as:
• multidisciplinary, team, members
• applying, principles
• situational, awareness
• biomedical, informatics
• cognitive, workload
• HFE
• perspective
• task
• equipment
After identifying some key linguistic features for each grouping, we collected terms used in different contexts. One form, "the human factor", collected was comprised of an article the and the singular form the human factor and commonly contextualized as the state of being human. Another was the pluralized and sometimes capitalized form "Human Factors" commonly referring to:
• Some states of being human or involving human limitations (and capabilities), or
• A noun describing a discipline. Definition adopted by the International Ergonomics Society:
“Ergonomics (or human factors) is the scientific discipline concerned with the understanding of interactions among humans and other elements of a system, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance.” (International Ergonomics Association, 2023), or
• An adjective describing a set of practices and principles for approaching the inquiry into, design, and evaluation of socio-technical systems.
As a team we walked through different linguistic visualizations and reviewed terms within context. (Additional terms in context will be provided in the presentation and proceedings paper)
"the human factor":
• “In the future, robotic approaches will probably replace current surgical techniques using cutting guides and help reduce intraoperative inaccuracies due to the human factor.” (Wojcik et al., 2023)
• “The human factor is one of the biggest security threats to health information systems (HIS).” (Sari et al., 2023)
• “Importantly, in an era of growing technicalization and use of AI algorithms, ICT doctors may safeguard the human factor in medicine.” (Jongen, 2022)
"Human Factors or human factors":
• “Transitioning from one EHR to another constitutes a major organizational change that requires nearly every person in the organization to change how they do their work. Future research should include human factors as well as diverse methodological approaches such as mixed methods and implementation science.” (Miake-Lye et al., 2023)
• Cognitive ergonomics is the branch of human factors and ergonomics (HFE) focused on supporting the cognitive processes of individuals within a system. (Li-Wang et al., 2023)
• “To provide standardized recommendations for the emergency department (ED) response to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) events by combining the human factors/ergonomics method of hierarchical task analysis with the theoretical framework for Work as Imagined versus Work as Done.” (Razak et al., 2023)
Event Type
Poster Presentation
TimeTuesday, March 264:45pm - 6:15pm CDT
LocationSalon C
Digital Health
Simulation and Education
Hospital Environments
Medical and Drug Delivery Devices
Patient Safety Research and Initiatives