Publication statistics
Pub. period:1988-1998
Pub. count:8
Number of co-authors:13
Co-authors
Number of publications with 3 favourite co-authors:
Michael Venturino:3Robert K. Osgood:2Hunter G. Hoffman:1 Productive colleagues
Maxwell J. Wells's 3 most productive colleagues in number of publications:
Thomas B. Sheridan:22Thomas A. Furness:18Michael Venturino:9
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Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.
”
-- Alfred North Whitehead
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Maxwell J. Wells
Publications by Maxwell J. Wells (bibliography)
Hoffman, Hunter, Prothero, Jerrold, Wells, Maxwell J. and Groen, Joris (1998): Virtual Chess: Meaning Enhances Users' Sense of Presence in Virtual Environments. In International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 10 (3) pp. 251-263.
“Presence refers to the sensation of going into a computer-simulated environment. We investigated whether presence and memory accuracy are affected by the meaningfulness of the information encountered in the virtual environment (VE). Non-chess players and three levels of chess players studied meaningful and meaningless chess positions in VEs. They rated the level of presence experienced in each and took an old-new recognition memory test. Non-chess players reported no difference in presence for meaningful compared with meaningless positions, yet even weak chess players reported feeling more present with meaningful compared with meaningless positions. Thus, only modest levels of expertise were needed to enhance presence. In contrast, tournament-level chess-playing ability was required before meaningful chess positions were remembered significantly more accurately than meaningless chess positions. Tournament players' memory accuracy was very high for meaningful positions but was the same as non-chess players for meaningless positions. Meaning did not significantly influence memory accuracy for weak chess players. Our memory results replicate and extend the findings of Chase and Simon (1973). Our presence results show how cognitive factors inherent in the user can influence the quality of the human-computer interface. Practical implications are discussed.”
© All rights reserved Hoffman et al. and/or Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Prothero, Jerrold D., Hoffman, Hunter G., Parker, Donald E., Furness, Thomas A. and Wells, Maxwell J. (1995): Foreground/Background Manipulations Affect Presence. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 39th Annual Meeting 1995. pp. 1410-1414.
“A possible relation between vection and presence is discussed. Two experiments examined the hypothesis that "presence" is enhanced by manipulations which facilitate interpreting visual scenes as "background." A total of 39 participants in two experiments engaged in a pursuit game while in a virtual visual environment generated by an HMD and rated their experience of "presence" on 5 questions. Experiment 1 compared two viewing conditions: visual scene masking -- at the eye and a paper mask mounted on the screen with the same 60{deg} FOV, and showed that presence was enhanced by eye masking relative to screen masking. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with a double-blind experimental design.”
© All rights reserved Prothero et al. and/or Human Factors Society
Wells, Maxwell J. and Osgood, Robert K. (1993): InterView: A Software Tool for Interface Design. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 37th Annual Meeting 1993. p. 1041.
“InterView is a software tool for designing, specifying and visualizing human-machine interfaces. The design of the tool began with two premises. The first is that, in order to adequately specify an interface, a designer must consider the inputs, outputs, and states of the system for which the interface is being designed. In this context, inputs refer to user-to-system communications, as mediated through buttons, keyboards, etc. Outputs refer to system-to-user communications, as mediated by displays, or other feedback. States refer to discrete conditions, either real or conceptual, in which the system may be at a given time. The second premise is that good, clear diagrams play an essential part in designing complex systems. Given appropriate diagramming techniques, it is much easier to describe complex activities and procedures in diagrams than in text. A picture can be worth more than a thousand words, because it is concise, precise, and clear. It does not allow the sloppiness and possibilities for misinterpretation that are common in text specifications.”
© All rights reserved Wells and Osgood and/or Human Factors Society
Wells, Maxwell J., Krueger, Myron, Sheridan, Thomas B., Ellis, Stephen and Cott, Harold Van (1992): "There is Nothing New in Cyberspace": A Motion for Debate. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 36th Annual Meeting 1992. p. 1049.
“Cyberspace is the environment created during the experience of virtual reality. Therefore, to assert that there is nothing new in cyberspace alludes to there being nothing new about virtual reality. Is this assertion correct? Is virtual reality an exciting development in human-computer interaction, or is it simply another example of effective simulation? Does current media interest herald a major advance in information technology, or will virtual reality go the way of artificial intelligence, cold fusion and junk bonds? Is virtual reality the best thing since sliced bread, or is it last week's buns in a new wrapper? There are experts who support both views. The best-thing-since-sliced-bread protagonists point to potential applications in training, communications, entertainment and human-computer interaction. They use terms like "intuitive", "circumambience", and "presence." The opposition use terms like "so what?", "when?", and "right!". Are the proponents harbingers or visionaries? Are the opponents sceptics or Luddites? Predicting the impact of technology is notoriously difficult. Hindsight allows us, for example, to express pitiful disdain towards the engineer who saw no future for the telephone, or the clerk who could not be convinced of the benefits of the photocopier. Experts are no better, or no worse, at predicting than the rest of us. The value of experts is in their ability to fit current ideas and events into the context of past events, and to do so in a coherent and engaging manner.”
© All rights reserved Wells et al. and/or Human Factors Society
Venturino, Michael and Wells, Maxwell J. (1990): Head Movements as a Function of Field-of-View Size on a Helmet-Mounted Display. In: D., Woods, and E., Roth, (eds.) Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 34th Annual Meeting 1990, Santa Monica, USA. pp. 1572-1576.
“Measurements were made of subjects' head movements as they found and memorized the position of targets located around them. Four factors were manipulated: the size of the field-cf-view (FOV) with which they could view the targets, the number of targets, the background against which the targets were presented (blank or terrain), and the search instructions (slow or fast). The targets and terrain were viewed on a binocular helmet-mounted display. The dependent variables included measures of the amount of head displacement and head velocity. In the slow search trials, small FOVs produced significantly more head displacement and lower head velocities than did the large FOVs. In the fast search trials, head velocity increased with increasing FOV. The results are interpreted in terms of the disruptive effects of small FOVs on the efficient use of coordinated head and eye movements to acquire spatial information.”
© All rights reserved Venturino and Wells and/or Human Factors Society
Wells, Maxwell J. (1989): Obtaining New Perspectives with Head-Coupled Simulators. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 33rd Annual Meeting 1989. p. 81.
“Head-coupled simulators consist of a head-mounted display, an image generator and a head position sensor. By measuring where the head is pointing, and displaying the appropriate visual information on the display, the wearer can be presented with a simulated visual environment. The integration of the devices with display to the other sensory modalities means that the user could also be presented with simulated auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic information. The technologies for use in head-coupled simulators are evolving to make them cheaper, lighter and more readily available. The objective of this symposium is to act as a forum for the presentation and discussion of some of the many current applications of head-coupled simulators. The range of empirical studies which will be covered will demonstrate the flexibility and applicability of these devices. It is envisioned that the reduction in the need for the expensive and cumbersome equipment associated with traditional simulators will make head-coupled simulators of interest to the human factors community.”
© All rights reserved Wells and/or Human Factors Society
Wells, Maxwell J. and Venturino, Michael (1989): The Effect of Increasing Task Complexity on the Field-of-View Requirements for a Visually Coupled System. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 33rd Annual Meeting 1989. pp. 91-95.
“Ten subjects performed a task on a head-coupled simulator using various sized fields-of-view (FOVs). The task required them to visually acquire, remember the location of, monitor and shoot 3 or 6 objects. In addition they were required to perform a secondary tracking task. Performance at monitoring and shooting the objects decreased with decreasing FOV size and increasing number of objects. Secondary task performance also decreased with decreasing FOV. The ability to recall the location of objects was unaffected by changes in FOV size. However, tracking performance was degraded while subjects used smaller FOVS to find and learn the location of objects. The results indicate that although visual search performance can be maintained with small FOVs, it is done in a manner which may compromise performance at other tasks.”
© All rights reserved Wells and Venturino and/or Human Factors Society
Wells, Maxwell J., Venturino, Michael and Osgood, Robert K. (1988): Using Target Replacement Performance to Measure Spatial Awareness in a Helmet-Mounted Simulator. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 32nd Annual Meeting 1988. pp. 1429-1433.
“Measurements were made of the ability of 20 subjects to acquire 3,6 or 9 stationary visual targets and then replace them after they had been removed. The targets were viewed with various sized fields-of-view (FOVs) using a Visually Coupled Airborne Systems Simulator (VCASS), which was mounted on the head and which used head position information to provide space-stabilized computer-generated images. Targets were presented with a blank background or a terrain background. Subjects were instructed to use as much time as they required or to be as quick as possible searching for the targets. Mean times to search for the targets were faster with the larger FOVs and faster with fewer targets. Replacement accuracy was not sensitive to the FOV but decreased with increasing number of targets. Search times were slower, but replacement accuracy was greater with a terrain background than with a bland background. In the fast search conditions, the number of guessed target replacements decreased with decreasing numbers of targets and increasing FOV. It is concluded that target replacement performance was sensitive to manipulation of the independent variables and as such is a potentially useful metric of spatial awareness.”
© All rights reserved Wells et al. and/or Human Factors Society
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