Engineering psychology

Engineering psychology is the science of human behavior and capability, applied to the design and operation of systems and technology. As an applied field of psychology and an interdisciplinary part of ergonomics, it aims to improve the relationships between people and machines by redesigning equipment, interactions, or the environment in which they take place. The work of an engineering psychologist is often described as making the relationship more "user-friendly."

Engineering psychology was created from within experimental psychology. Engineering psychology started during World War I (1914). The reason why this subject was developed during this time was because many of America’s weapons were failing; bombs not falling in the right place to weapons attacking normal marine life. The fault was traced back to human errors. One of the first designs to be built to restrain human error was the use of psychoacoustics by S.S. Stevens and L.L. Beranek were two of the first American psychologists called upon to help change how people and machinery worked together. One of their first assignments was to try and reduce noise levels in military aircraft. The work was directed at improving intelligibility of military communication systems and appeared to have been very successful. However it was not until after August 1945 that levels of research in engineering psychology began to increase significantly. This occurred because the research that started in 1940 now began to show.

Lillian Gilbreth combined the talents of an engineer, psychologist and mother of twelve. Her appreciation of human factors made her successful in the implementation of time and motion studies and scientific management. She went on to pioneer ergonomics in the kitchen, inventing the pedal bin, for example.

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