Michael A. Nees

My courses are designed to foster the development of critical thinking skills that will enable students to be successful people and good world citizens on their own terms. In the last couple of years, I’ve been teaching the courses Human Factors and Engineering Psychology, Psychology of Humans and Technology, Quantitative Psychology and Capstone: Disabilities and Assistive Technology. My capstone course, in particular, invites students to consider a wide variety of perspectives on justice, values, and life’s meaning. In all courses, I emphasize the values of science as a path to knowledge, and I have begun to especially emphasize how these values can be used to make sense of a complex world that is characterized by a deluge of information—much of which is dis/misinformation. I also have redoubled my efforts to challenge students to think proactively about their own values and how those values translate to ethical professional behavior.

I have come to deeply appreciate what an absolute privilege it is to be able to spend my time teaching and learning from young adults. Our students are smart, thoughtful, motivated, and kind people. I genuinely enjoy the opportunity to be a part of their educational and life journeys. I also have realized that any given 15-week semester is actually a very brief amount of time that we spend together with that unique group of people, so I try to appreciate that time and make the most of it.

I was trained in engineering psychology (also known as “human factors and ergonomics”). Engineering psychologists apply empirical knowledge of human psychological capabilities and limitations to the design and evaluation of systems. A “system” can be anything in the engineered environment with which a human interacts—from a doorknob to a smartphone to complex computer systems or automobiles. Engineering psychologists seek to make systems more safe, user-friendly, efficient, and desirable through applications of psychological science.

• Carl R. and Ingeborg Beidleman Research Award, Lafayette College (2022)
• Best Paper, 25th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD) for “Eight components of a design theory of sonification” (2019)
• Marquis Distinguished Teaching Award, Lafayette College (2019)
• Best Paper, 23rd International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD) for “How do people think they remember melodies and timbre? Phenomenological reports of memory for nonverbal sounds” (2017)
• Student Government Superior Teaching Award, Lafayette College (2016)
• Best Presentation, 19th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD 2013) for “Modality and encoding strategy effects on a verification task with accelerated speech, visual text, and tones” (2013)
• APA Division 21 George E. Briggs Award for Outstanding Dissertation in Applied Experimental/Engineering Psychology (2011)

My Lafayette site

Nees, M.A., Liu, C.*, & Bogan, K.*. (2024) Speech, Nonspeech Audio, and Visual Interruptions of a Tracking Task: A Replication and Extension of Nees & Sampsell (2021). Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 72(5), 309-316.

Nees, M.A. (2024). Auditory versus visual Interruptions: A skeptical perspective on auditory preemption and suggestions for advancing theory. Auditory Perception & Cognition, 7(2), 140-162.

Nees, M.A., & Liebman, E.* (2023). Auditory icons, earcons, spearcons, and speech: A systematic review and meta-analysis of brief audio alerts in human-machine interfaces. Auditory Perception & Cognition, 6(3-4), 300-329.

Nees, M.A., & Liu, C.* (2022). Mental models of driver monitoring systems: Perceptions of monitoring capabilities. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 91, 484-498.

Nees, M.A., Herwig, K.*, Quigley, L.*, & Zhang, J.* (2021). Relationships among driving styles, desire for control, illusion of control, and self-reported driving behaviors. Traffic Injury Prevention, 22(5), 372-377.

Nees, M.A., Sharma, N.* & Shore, A.* (2020). Attributions of accidents to ‘human error’ in news stories: Effects on perceived culpability, perceived preventability, and perceived need for punishment. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 148, Article 105792.

Nees, M.A. (2019). Safer than the average human driver (who is less safe than me)? Examining a popular safety benchmark for self-driving cars. Journal of Safety Research, 69, 61-68.

Nees, M.A. (2024). Comparing auditory, haptic, and combined auditory-haptic lane departure warnings: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Auditory Display, Troy, New York, June 2024.

Nees, M.A. Driver monitoring systems: Perceived fairness of consequences when distractions are detected. (2021). Adjunct Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutomotiveUI ’21 Adjunct), Leeds, United Kingdom, September 2021.

Nees, M.A., Sharma, N.*, & Herwig, K.* (2020). Some characteristics of mental models of advanced driver assistance systems: A semi-structured interviews approach. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 64^th Annual Meeting, October 2020, pp. 1313-1317.

*Indicates Lafayette student co-author