Military Engineering Psychology: Setting the Pace for Exceptional Performance

Since World War II, engineering psychologists have contributed immensely to the design of complex, sophisticated equipment and weapon systems to ensure that military personnel operate at optimum levels in training and combat. Engineering psychologists not only do superb human sciences research, but as practitioners, they serve as key consultants advocating for system users (soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines) in the materiel systems engineering and development process. Human factors specialists bring in-depth appreciation of how human operators will perform on high-technology systems, under stressful working conditions, in harsh environmental extremes, often with information overload, in time-sensitive settings requiring quick, accurate decision-making, where failure is not an option. This chapter traces 65 years of researching and applying human engineering principles in military system design and operations. Projections for needed culture change are envisioned for future human-factors work with military forces.