Re-thinking Lab Experiments in Engineering Psychology: A Personal Journey toward Replicability and Immersion

Description

Laboratory experiments are among the most widely used research methods to study human behavior in human-technology interaction. However, laboratory experiments as a research method have also been the subject of criticism throughout history in psychology. They are often considered artificial and not very comparable to real-world situations, as well as error-prone due to the special social situation with power imbalance. Moreover, laboratory experiments have also recently come under criticism in the context of the replicability crisis in the behavioral sciences, as they are often characterized by only moderately large sample sizes and power. This presentation is a personal reflection on the use of laboratory experiments, with their advantages and disadvantages, based on stages of my own research activity and research at the LIT Robopsychology Lab at Johannes Kepler University Linz as case studies. Based on these considerations, I would like to highlight two key points in this presentation that I personally find particularly relevant in laboratory studies. 1) One key point are reflections from the reform movement following the replicability crisis, and 2) the possibility of using innovative research environments such as Virtual Reality and research-based games and art with the goal of creating a higher degree of immersion and relevance for study participants.

Period	20 Jul 2022
Event title	Hybrid Societies Summer School 2022
Event type	Conference
Location	GermanyShow on map