Psychology

Profile

Background

I have a BSc in Psychology from Manchester Polytechnic, an MSc in Information Processing: Computers and the Man-Machine Interface (I kid you not!) from York University, and a PhD in 'How to Use Colour in Computer Displays' from Imperial College, London University.  

I am a Reader in Applied Psychology and have three strands of research – how to make people happier at work, the use of colour to structure information in computer displays and the career destinations of psychology students.  Although these areas might sound unrelated - they are all concerned with applying psychology to the real world.

Teaching Responsibilities

I am co-ordinator for the core Year 2 unit Quantitative Analysis for Psychologists (i.e. the Stats course).  In Semester 1 of each year, the course introduces students to Analyses of Variance, regression and power calculations.  I also coordinate the Year 3 core unit Occupational Choice which is all about the career destinations of psychology students and providing students with the necessary information and skills to make an informed choice about what they should be doing after they have graduated.

I also teach a unit on SPSS on the MSc Psychological Research Methods course.

Research

My research is situated in the fields of Human Factors and Organisational Satisfaction.

My PhD investigated how best colour coding can be used in control rooms and other complex information displays. This is an aspect of Human Factors, also known as Ergonomics or Human-Computer Interaction.

As an Ergonomist I have worked with, a number of companies on this and related topics, they include Nuclear Electric, IBM, ICL, Hitachi, and the Civil Aviation Authority.

I love the whole area of colour research and have had students conduct projects in all sorts of areas including colour naming, colour overlays, colour syneasthesia, colour and personality and even colour of football kits!

My recent research includes developing a tool to measure Stress and the Quality of Working Life ( ... more information ... ), and evaluating and then developing design solutions for complex control room interfaces. My other research interests include the Careers Destinations of Higher Education students and Careers counselling in the Third World. 

My colleague Simon Easton and I have set up a ‘spin out’ company to market our expertise in assessing the quality of working life of large organisations.  We have assessed thousands of people from some famous organisations (including the University of Portsmouth!).  We also use this data to produce publications about QoWL.

Research Grants

Recent research funding has included:

• 2005. £59,000 from HEIF to further develop a Workplace Stress and Quality of Working Life Psychometric Scale.
• 2005. £43,000 from SEPOC to computerise our Workplace Stress and Quality of Working Life Psychometric Scale.
• 2005. £10,000 from the BPS to investigate the first and further destination of graduates from Psychology Degree courses.
• 2002. Network Rail.  Evaluation of Rail Network Diagrams.
• 2002. Network Rail. Evaluation and implementation of Fonts in Rail Signal Control rooms.
• 2001. £1,500 from The Nuffield Foundation. The impact of colour and user expertise on searching for information in computer-based tables.

Recent Publications

More recent publications

Publications before 2006

Van Laar, D. and Turner, M. (2005). User Preference as a Method for Determining Screen Polarity Requirements for Complex Control Room Displays. Proceedings of HCI International 2005 , Las Vegas. 10pp. ISBN: 0805858075.

Love, S., Turner, M. and Van Laar, D. (2005). The Effect of Background Occlusion and User Perceptual Characteristics on Sickness and Visual Attention During Immersion. 10pp. Proceedings of HCI International 2005, Las Vegas. ISBN: 0805858075.

Howell, M., Love, S., Turner, M., & Van Laar, D. (2004). Improving the usability of mobile phone services using spatial interface metaphors. In: P.T. McCabe (Ed) Contemporary Ergonomics 2004, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.  pp159-164. ISBN: 0 849323428.

Arulmani, G., Van Laar, D.L., Easton, S. (2003). The Influence of Career Beliefs and Socio-Economic Status on the Career Decision-Making of High School Students in India.  International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 3 (3), 193-204.

Howell, M., Love, S., Turner, M. & Van Laar, D. (2003). Interface metaphors for automated mobile phone services.  In Human-Computer Interaction: Theory and Practice (Part I). Ed(s). Jacko, J. , Stephanidis, C. pp128-132. ISBN 0805849300.

Turner, M., Van Laar, D., Chapman, K. (2003).  The influence of colour coding on user search times in computer-presented, tabular displays. In Human Centred Computing: Cognitive, Social and Ergonomic Aspects, Ed(s). Harris, D., Duffy,  V., Smith, M., Stephanidis, C. pp.360-364. ISBN 0805849327.

Howell, M., Love, S., Turner, M. & Van Laar, D. (2003). Generating interface metaphors: a comparison of 2 methodologies. In P. McCabe (Ed). Contemporary Ergonomics 2003. London: Taylor & Francis (pp.235-240). ISBN 0415309948.

Van Laar, D. L., Deshe, O. (2002).  Evaluation of a visual layering methodology for colour coding control room displays. Journal of Applied Ergonomics, 33, 371-377. [ PDF ]

Guest, S and Van Laar, D.L. (2002). The effect of name category and discriminability on the search characteristics of colour sets.  Perception, 31, 445-461.

Arulmani, G., Van Laar, D.L., Easton, S. (2001). Career Planning Orientation of High School Boys in India: a study of socioeconomic and social cognitive variables. Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology, 27(1-2), 7-17.

Van Laar, D.L., (2001). Psychological and cartographic principles for the production of visual layering effects in computer displays.  Displays, 22 (4), 125-135. [ PDF ]

Van Laar, D. L (2001). Colour coding with visual layers can provide performance enhancements in control room displays. In People in Control 2.  228-233. London: IEE. ISBN 085296742X.