A Literature Study to Explore Empirically: What Is the Scientific Discipline of Human Factors and What Makes It Distinct from Other Related Fields

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate which topics are studied within human factors, what are the “levels” studied (individuals, work group, organizations, societies), and which methods are used. The questions were answered by investigating 183 papers published in the Human Factors journal for 2015 and 2016. The results showed that more than five papers included the topics; car driving, physical workload, human-automation interaction, design and usability, human machine interface (displays, controls and alarms), mental workload, cognition, team work, training/simulations, and anthropometry. The topics that seem to be unique for human factors are all the topics that are about human-computer/technology interactions and the topic of design and usability. Experiments are the main method used in human factors and almost all of the studies are at the individual level.