Sonifications in the control room

Those whose work involves monitoring highly complex industrial procedues sometimes have difficulty attending to several concurrent processes (at the same time). To this end : “Computer scientists at the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interactive Technology (CITEC) at Bielefeld University and the University of Vienna have developed a method that allows control room staff to monitor […]

Survey for cardiopulmonary bypass perfusionists

If you are a perfusionist helping to perform a cardiopulmonary bypass, we ask you to take a moment to post a comment here about the following study: “2010 Survey on cell phone use while performing cardiopulmonary bypass,” T Smith, E Darling, B Searles, Perfusion, September 2011 vol. 26 no. 5 375-380. The authors, at SUNY Upstate […]

Checking email while you drive a car

This car commercial, for the 2012 Toyota Camry, may also be an experiment of some sort. It begins with just the driver,then (as if by magic) the components of the car materialize around him, one by one. These components make their appearance, presumably, in the order of their importance and/or desirability. The announcer, voicing the […]

The Power of Whining

There’s a new breakthrough in the attempt to appreciate whining: “Whines, cries, and motherese: Their relative power to distract,” Rosemarie Sokol Chang and Nicholas S. Thompson, Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology, 2011, 5(2), 131-141. The authors, at SUNY New Paltz and Clark University, explain: “Distraction was measured in terms of number of subtraction […]