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--- abstract: 'Psychophysiological measures, which are not contaminated by demand characteristics, are potentially useful for improving systems and for examining psychological processes in human-computer interaction. In this study we report the use of minute-by-minute scored heart-rate (HR) and skin-conductance level (SCL) in a 25-subject experiment. Each subject was presented with two simulated bank-transaction tasks, one user-friendly and the other user-hostile. To check whether any differences were due simply to sheer difficulty, easy (forward digit-span) and hard (backward digit-span) memory tasks were presented to all subjects. The HR was higher during the computer (problem-solving) tasks than the memory tasks, but was unaffected by task difficulty, whereas SCL was uniquely elevated during the hard (user-hostile) computer task. The HR result is interpreted as reflecting parasympathetic withdrawal, while the SCL result suggests that the user-hostile software produced sympathetic excitation of the sort associated with the fight-or-flight reaction. SCL may serve as a good measure of user-friendliness.' altloc: - http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/~muter/Abs1993.htm chapter: ~ commentary: ~ commref: ~ confdates: ~ conference: ~ confloc: ~ contact_email: ~ creators_id: [] creators_name: - family: Muter given: Paul honourific: '' lineage: '' - family: Furedy given: J.J. honourific: '' lineage: '' - family: Vincent given: A. honourific: '' lineage: '' - family: Pelcowitz given: T. honourific: '' lineage: '' date: 1993 date_type: published datestamp: 2005-06-30 department: ~ dir: disk0/00/00/44/29 edit_lock_since: ~ edit_lock_until: ~ edit_lock_user: ~ editors_id: [] editors_name: [] eprint_status: archive eprintid: 4429 fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/text_html.png;/4429/1/Abs1993.htm full_text_status: public importid: ~ institution: ~ isbn: ~ ispublished: pub issn: ~ item_issues_comment: [] item_issues_count: 0 item_issues_description: [] item_issues_id: [] item_issues_reported_by: [] item_issues_resolved_by: [] item_issues_status: [] item_issues_timestamp: [] item_issues_type: [] keywords: 'usability, psychophysiology' lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:56:06 latitude: ~ longitude: ~ metadata_visibility: show note: ~ number: ~ pagerange: 105-111 pubdom: FALSE publication: Computers in Human Behavior publisher: Computers in Human Behavior refereed: TRUE referencetext: |-2 Brown, C. M. (1988). Human-computer interface design guidelines. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Furedy, J. J. (1983). Operational, analogical, and genuine definitions of psychophysiology. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 1, 13-19. Furedy, J. J. (1987). Beyond heart-rate in the cardiac psychophysiological assessment of mental effort: The T-wave amplitude component of the electrocardiogram. Human Factors, 29, 183-194. Furedy, J. J., & Heslegrave, R. J. (1983). A consideration of recent criticisms of the T-wave amplitude index of myocardial sympathetic activity. Psychophysiology, 20, 204-211. Heslegrave, R. J., & Furedy, J. J. (1979). Anticipatory HR deceleration as a function of perceived control and probability of aversive loud noise: A deployment of attention account. Biological Psychology, 7,147-166. Nickerson, R. S. (1986). Using computers: Human factors in information systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Norman, D. A. (1988). The psychology of everyday things. New York: Basic Books. Shneiderman, B. (1987). Designing the user interface: Strategies for effective human-computer interaction. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. What new age?. (1990, August 12). Time, pp. 42-44. relation_type: [] relation_uri: [] reportno: ~ rev_number: 8 series: ~ source: ~ status_changed: 2007-09-12 16:59:43 subjects: - comp-sci-hci succeeds: ~ suggestions: ~ sword_depositor: ~ sword_slug: ~ thesistype: ~ title: User-hostile systems and patterns of psychophysiological activity type: journalp userid: 393 volume: 9