Everyone knows that thanks to the scientific and technological revolution the psychological structure of industrial labor has been transformed. Also, during the scientific and technological revolution, as a result of the improvement of automated labor, a direction in psychology emerged and began its development, which aims to investigate the means of interaction with the help of information and the processes taking place between man and technology. This direction is called "engineering psychology". Its most important components are the processes of human perception and processing of operational information, making decisions under time-limited conditions, computerizing all branches of management and production, the emergence and development of mobile communications, and minimizing the costs of various types of resources.
Methods of engineering psychology
In engineering psychology, in addition to psychological methods, distinguish:
- Psychophysiological.
- Engineering and psychological.
- Personological.
- Methods of psycho-counseling, psychological help.
- Mathematical.
Psychophysiological and personological help to investigate the organization of psycho-physiological functions of a person during his activity, to evaluate and control the functional state of the human operator, the efficiency of labor activity, efficiency, manifestations of the individuality and personality of the employee. Engineering and psychological are used to examine the process of professional human activity of an operator and analyze its mistakes, as well as environmental factors. Mathematical methods are used to construct the structures of the operator's activity. Methods of modeling include methods of mathematical modeling and subject-mathematical methods.
Psychology of human work and engineering psychology
In its development, engineering psychology is based on the teachings of labor psychology. But, strangely enough, these disciplines have different tasks. The psychology of labor is one of the branches of psychology that studies the regularity of the formation of the psychic activity of the personality and its manifestation in different types of labor. She develops recommendations that are practical in nature, on the psychological provision of effective and safe work. The goal of labor psychology is to increase the effectiveness of human labor through the improvement of previously created techniques. The concept of engineering psychology includes, as it was previously noted, the study of the information interrelation between man and technology, and on the basis of the results and information obtained, their application in the "technician's environment" system. The purpose of engineering psychology: the development of the foundations, which are of a psychological orientation, for the further design and creation of new technology, taking into account the psychological characteristics of man.
Studying the interconnection of components in the system "technician man", the following principles of engineering psychology are developed:
- The professionalism of training employees for their further relationship with specific machines and equipment.
- Design and operation of machinery.
- Selection of people who meet the required skills (the necessary level of professional and psychological qualities) for their further work.
Difficulties of engineering psychology
The main problems of engineering psychology include:
- The study of the general activities of all operators, the processes of communication between them and the information
interaction. - Analysis of human tasks within the framework of management, as well as the distribution of certain functions between automatic devices and humans.
- Investigation of factors that affect the efficiency, speed, quality and accuracy of human operator actions.
It is worth noting, during its development, in engineering psychology, there has been a transition from the study of individual elements of a different type of activity to the study, in general, of labor activity.