ABSTRACT
Traditional Approaches to Stress Research . . . . . . . . . 92
Theoretical Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Appraisal Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Adaptation Under Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
The Cognitive-Energetic Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Relationship between Stress and
Cognitive Workload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Cognitive Workload as a Form of Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Performance and Workload:
Associations/Dissociations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Mitigation of Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Changing the Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Training/skill development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Personnel selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Changing the Task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Display design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Adaptive automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Hedonomics: Promoting Enjoyable
Human-Computer Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Teletic work and intrinsic motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Intrinsic motivation and skill development . . . . . . . . 98
Teletic work and motivational affordances . . . . . . . . . 99
Problems for Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Understanding Mental Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Resource metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Function of resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Empirical tests of the model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Structural mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Energetic mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Structure and energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Application of neuroergonomics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Development of the Adaptation under Stress Model . . . . . 102
Quantify the task dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Attentional narrowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Stressor characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Potential benefits of space-time distortion . . . . . . . . 103
Changes in adaptation: the roles
of time and intensity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Understanding Performance-Workload
Associations/Dissociations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Task factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Multidimensionality of workload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Individual Differences in Performance,
Workload, and Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Trait Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Affective State Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Attentional narrowing and adaptive response . . . . . 105
Hedonomics and individual differences . . . . . . . . . . 105
Implications of Stress for Researchers
and Practitioners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
For those whose professional lives revolve around humancomputer interaction (HCI), they may ask themselves why they should even glance at a chapter on stress. While it is evident that many computer systems have to support people operating in stressful circumstances, there are important design issues concerning how to present information in these very demanding circumstances. However, one could still ask, are these of central interest to those in the mainstream of HCI? Indeed, if these were the only issues, we would agree and would recommend the reader to pass quickly onto something of much more evident relevance. However, we hope to persuade you that the relevance of stress research to HCI is not limited to such concerns. Indeed, we hope to convince the reader that stress, in the form of task loading, is central to all HCI. To achieve this, we first present a perspective that puts stress front and center in the HCI realm. Traditionally, stress has been seen as exposure to some adverse environmental circumstances, such as excessive heat, cold, noise, vibration, and so forth, and its effects manifest themselves primarily in relation to the physiological system most perturbed by the stress at hand. However, Hancock and Warm (1989) observed that stress effects are virtually all mediated through the brain, but for the cortex such effects are almost always of secondary concern since the brain is primarily involved with the goals of ongoing behavior or, more simply, the current task. Therefore, we want to change the orientation of concern so that stress is not just a result of peripheral interference but rather that the primary source of stress comes from the ongoing task itself. If we now see the task itself as the primary driving influence then stress concerns are central to all HCI issues.
