Heart-Computer Synchronization Interface to control human-machine symbiosis: a new human availability support for cooperative systems

The paper proposes an original architecture to control human-machine symbiosis by using Heart-Computer Synchronization Interfaces (HCSI). This symbiosis depends on the limits of three autonomy prerequisites: the knowledge required to treat a situation, the availability of the human and technical resources when achieving tasks, and the possibilities to act by using dedicated interfaces. As inattention is one the causes of a lack or a loss of the symbiosis related to human availability, the new system consists in controlling it by studying the impact of the synchronization of dynamic event occurrence with heart rate. The results of an exploratory study are relevant and promising: subjects for who the activation of visual and sound alarms were synchronized with heartbeats made significantly more perception errors than subjects for who this activation was not synchronized. They demonstrate that the design of human-machine systems has to be aware of such synchronization that may affect human perception abilities and degrade the efficiency of the cooperative activity achievement. This is then a new challenge for defining future cooperative systems based on human availability supports to perceive data from automated tools. Copyright (C) 2019. The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.