Frank Durso

Most of my current research would fall under the labels applied cognition or cognitive engineering: how cognition (e.g., knowledge, expertise, working memory, attention allocation, strategy selection) interacts with environmental components (e.g., technology, the representation of flight data, available automation, patient symptoms, presence of teammates) to affect the operator´s performance, learning, transfer, workload, and situation awareness. Current and imminent projects include: (1) An exploration of the human factors consequences of the NextGen National Airspace initiative: how the future air traffic controller might use strategies and automation to manage workload, situation understanding, and performance especially during supervisory monitoring. (2) An investigation of strategy use and selection in dynamic environments, including healthcare (i.e., nurses, diabetics) and aviation. Our hope is to develop a methodology that allows easy elicitation of strategies from experts; to articulate how strategy selection is used to protect situation comprehension, workload, and performance; and to train novices in these expert strategies. (3) The development of a taxonomy of human-automation coordination strategies and the consequences of those strategies for the development of new technologies. (4) Exploration of electromyography to aid in the detection of loss of situation awareness (confusion).

• American Psychological Association (Fellow; Past-President, Division 21)
• Association of Psychological Science (Fellow)
• Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (Fellow; Executive board)
• Psychonomic Society
• Sigma Xi
• Southwestern Psychological Association (Past-President)
• Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition
• Air Traffic Controller Association

• Durso, F. T., & Drews, F. (in press). Aviation, healthcare, and ecosystems: A socio-natural systems perspective. Current Directions in Psychological Science.
• Durso, F. T. (Ed., 2009). Reviews of Human Factors and Ergonomics (5^th). Santa Monica: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
• Cooke, N. M., & Durso, F. T. (2008). Stories of Modern Technology Failures and Cognitive Engineering Successes. CRC Press.
• Durso, F.T., Nickerson, R., Dumais, S. T., Lewandowsky, S., & Perfect, T. (Eds., 2007). The Handbook of Applied Cognition (2^nd), Chicester: Wiley.
• Sethumadhavan, A., & Durso, F. T. (2009). Selection in air traffic control: Is nonradar training a predictor of radar performance? Human Factors
• Durso, F. T., Sethumadhavan, A., & Crutchfield, J.(in press). From task analysis to information relevance. Human Factors., 50, 755-762
• Durso, F. T., & Manning, C. A. (2009). Air traffic control. In C. M. Carswell (Ed.), Reviews of Human Factors and Ergonomics (4^th). Santa Monica: HFES, pp. 195-244
• Durso, F. T., & Alexander, A. (in press). Managing workload, performance, and situation awareness in aviation systems. In E. Salas, & D. Maurino (Eds.) Human Factors in Aviation, Elsevier.
• Durso, F. T., DeLucia, P. L., & Jones, K. S. (in press). Engineering psychology. In I. strong. Weiner & W. E. Craighead (Eds.), Corsini’s Encyclopedia of Psychology (4^th), New York: Wiley.
• Durso, F. T., & Sethumadhavan, A. (2008). Situation awareness: Understanding dynamic environments. Human Factors, 50, 442–448
• Durso, F. T., Crutchfield, J., & Harvey, C. (2007). The cooperative shift change. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomic Science, 8, 213-232.
• Durso, F. T., Rawson, K., & Girotto, S. (2007). Comprehension and situation awareness. In F. T. Durso, R. Nickerson, S. Dumais, S. Lewandowsky, & T. Perfect, Handbook of Applied Cognition (2^nd), Chicester: Wiley, pp. 163-193.
• Bleckley, M. K., Durso, F. T., Crutchfield, J. M., Engle, R., & Khanna, M. (2003). Individual differences in working memory capacity predict visual attention allocation. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. 10, 884-889.