Dr. Christian P. Janssen

About me

I am interested in understanding adaptive human behavior and human-automation interaction, especially in the mobility domain. How do cognitive characteristics, task characteristics, and context shape human behavior and performance? And how well can people optimize their performance given these constraints? Of particular interest are human behavior in mobility settins, and are phenomena such as multitasking, distraction and attention, and interaction with automated systems such as autonomous cars. I investigate these research topics together with students and colleagues at the Division of Experimental Psychology (in Dutch) at Utrecht University. I am also co-director of the ICAI lab on AI and mobility lab, a cross-disciplinary lab where we collaborate with non-academic partners on research at the intersection of AI and mobility.
My research uses a combination of empirical studies and computational modeling and computer simulations. I contribute both to theory and to applied settings. For the more applied components, I collaborate and publish with colleagues in industry and government institutes.


Special appointments:

I am a graduate of the UCL Interaction Centre. You can find my PhD thesis here: http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1348372/ (awarded with Briggs Award for the Best Doctoral Dissertation by the APA)

News

April 2024: Promoted to Associate Professor (UHD) in Psychology of Human-AI Interaction, especially in the mobility domain
I was promoted to "Universitair Hoofddocent" (roughly Associate Professor) in the Psychology of Human-AI Interaction, especially in the mobility domain. Within this function, I continue to shape research and teaching at our university in this unique inter-disciplinary area.

September 2023: Welcome Talha and Floor
Two new PhD candidates joined my lab:

• Floor Bontje: Researchers psychologically valid models of digital twins in urban mobility. This project is co-funded by the AI labs and by TNO. Co-supervised by Dr. Bas Spierings, Dr. Roland Geraerts, and Dr. Leendert van Maanen and by Dr. Taoufik Bakhri (TNO) . Read about the project here
• Talha Ozudogru : Researchers how planners of railway systems interact with AI systems. This project is funded by NWO, the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs, NS and ProRail. Co-supervised by Dr. Silja Renooij, Dr. Leendert van Maanen, and Prof. Dr. Mehdi Dastani. Read about the research here

May 2023: Recruiting two PhD students
I am recruiting two PhD students for projects on AI, Cognitive Modeling, and mobility. All intended to start in September 2023:

• Position 1: Cooperation between Human Operators and AI Algorithms in the Railway Sector (deadline May 21st, Dutch language requirement). Future planning of rail infrastructure usage requires a dynamic approach in which human operators interact with automated planning tools to jointly optimize the planning process. This requires both novel, yet-to-be-developed algorithms (AI), and a redefinition of the role that the human operator plays in the automated planning loop. Moreover, such algorithms and human operations need to be understood in the real world, in actual contexts of work, to tie scientific theories to everyday practice. This PhD research project will investigate how humans operate in the logistical planning process of the railways, as well as how the contribution of automated planners can be made insightful for human operators and vice versa. Supervision by myself, Dr. Leendert van Maanen, Dr. Silja Renooij, and Prof. Dr. Mehdi Dastani. In collaboration with NS and ProRail. See: Position
• Position 2: Digital twins for mobility (more details to follow).

February 2023: Senior Research Qualification obtained
I have obtained my senior research qualification at Utrecht University. This certification is awarded to experienced researchers that have made a demonstrable impact on their community local and international.

June 2022: Call for papers special issue Computational Cognitive Models for Human-Automated Vehicle Interaction
I am one of the editors of a special issue for the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies on the topic of Computational Cognitive Models for Human-Automated Vehicle Interaction. Please consider submitting papers. More information can be found on our dedicated website: http://www.cpjanssen.nl/IJHCS22/

September 2021: Outstanding service award and Auto-UI conference

• I feel honored that I was awarded the "outsanding service award" 2020 from teh International Journal of Human-Computer Studies for the speed and professionalism with which I have handled submissions as editor of the journal in 2020.
• We had a great ACM SIGCHI Auto-UI 2021 conference online. It was an honor to serve as one of the Technical Program Chairs this year. We had 248 attendees that watched the results of a review process with over 200 volunteers (reviewers, meta-reviewers) and around 200-250 manuscripts that were submitted across the various tracks. As technical program co-chair I helped oversee this scientific content, and I was very pleased with the end result!

Summer 2021: Father, new tasks, publications

• I became a father in the spring, and will be working part-time for some foreseeable time as I make sure to enjoy this precious time with my son.
• Per September 2021, I will take on a new role, as education coordinator within the division of Experimental Psychology. As such, I oversee the teaching tasks of all my colleagues, and represent them on the management team of the division, and within the management team of the Bachelor’s program on Psychology/li>
• Together with my colleagues, I wrote an expert report for the Transportation Authority (Rijkswaterstaat). It can be read online: Janssen, C.P., Donker, S.F., Hessels, R.S., Hooge, I.T.C., Kenemans, J.L., Van der Stigchel, S. (14 – 01 – 2021). De invloed van frequente aanduiding van maximumsnelheid boven de weg op het gedrag van de weggebruiker : literatuuronderzoek. Rijkswaterstaat. [Online version of report]
• Lots of papers got accepted!
  • Bremers, A.W.D., Yцntem, A.Ц, Li, K., Chu, D., Meijering, V., Janssen, C.P. (2021 in press) Perception of perspective in augmented reality head-up displays. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. [DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2021.102693 (open access)]. This paper is based on Alexandra Bremers’ Masters thesis research, which she conducted at Jaguar-Landrover.
  • Clausen, S., Tajadura-Jimйnez, Janssen, Bianchi-Berthouze (2021) Action sounds informing own body perception influence gender identity and social cognition. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 15. [ DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.688170 (open access)]. This paper is based on Sьnje Clausen’s Masters thesis research, which she conducted at UCL.
  • Nagaraju, D., Ansah, A.A., Ch, N.A.N., Mills, C., Janssen, C.P., Shaer, O., Kun, A.L. (2021) How will drivers take back control in automated vehicles? A driving simulator test of an interleaving framework. In: Proceedings of the 2021 conference Automotive User Interfaces and and Interactive Vehicular Applications. New York, NY: ACM Press. [DOI: 10.1145/1122445.1122456]
  • Edwards, J., Janssen, C.P., Gould, S.J., Cowan, B.R. (2021) Eliciting Spoken Interruptions to inform proactive speech agent design. Proceedings of ACM CUI.
  • Van Maanen, L., Van der Heiden, R.M.A., Bootsma, S.T., Janssen, C.P. (2021) Identifiability and Specificity of the two-point visual control model of steering. Proceedings of Cognitive Science Conference. [Article]
  • Van den Berg, M., Thijs, B., Pfleging, B., Janssen, C.P. (2021) Should Automated Features Warn, Assist, or Take Control? Extended Abstracts of the 2021 conference on Automotive User Interfaces and and Interactive Vehicular Applications. This is based on Myrna van den Berg and Benno Thijs' Master thesis research in the context of the Human-AI Alliance.
  • Edwards. J., Wintersberger, P., Clark, L., Rough, D., Doyle, P.R., Banks, V., Wyner, A., Janssen, C.P., Cowan, B.R. (2021) CUI @ Auto-UI: Exploring the fortunate and unfortunate futures of conversational automotive user interfaces. Extended Abstracts of the 2021 conference on Automotive User Interfaces and and Interactive Vehicular Applications
  • Jeon, M., Zhang, Y., Jeong, H., Janssen, C.P., Bao, S. (2021) Computational Modeling of Driving Behaviors: Challenges and Approaches. Extended Abstracts of the 2021 conference on Automotive User Interfaces and and Interactive Vehicular Applications
  • Janssen, C.P., Donker, S.F., Hessels, R.S., Hooge, I.T.C., Kenemans, J.L., Van der Stigchel, S. (14 – 01 – 2021). De invloed van frequente aanduiding van maximumsnelheid boven de weg op het gedrag van de weggebruiker : literatuuronderzoek. Rijkswaterstaat. [Online version of report].

February 2021: Online lecture
I gave a public lecture for the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors. The recording will be made available soon. I talked about these papers

• Janssen, C.P., Iqbal, S.T., Kun, A.L., and Donker, S.F. (2019, online first) Interrupted by my car? Implications of interruption and interleaving research for automated vehicles. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.07.004 [Publisher copy (open access)]
• Van der Heiden, R.M.A., Kenemans, J.L., Donker, S.F., and Janssen, C.P. (2022) The effect of cognitive load on auditory susceptibility during automated driving. Human Factors, 64(7), 1195-1209.[Publisher version (final; open access), preprint ]
• Van der Heiden RMA, Janssen CP, Donker SF, Hardeman LES, Mans K, Kenemans JL (2018) Susceptibility to audio signals during autonomous driving. PLoS ONE 13(8): e0201963. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201963 [Publisher copy (open access), Video clip summarizing the work]
• Van der Heiden, R.M.A., Iqbal, S.T., & Janssen, C.P. (2017) Priming drivers before handover in semi-autonomous cars. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. [Author version, Publisher version, video preview clip]

January 2021: New paper in Human Factors; Technical Program co-Chair Auto-UI 2021

• The last paper of Remo's PhD dissertation has been accepted for publication in Human Factors journal:
  Van der Heiden, R.M.A., Kenemans, J.L., Donker, S.F., and Janssen, C.P. (2021 in press) The effect of cognitive load on auditory susceptibility during automated driving. Human Factors.[Publisher version (final; open access), preprint ]
• I feel honored to have been asked as one of the Technical Program co-Chairs for ACM SIGCHI Auto-UI Conference 2021 (being organized virtually). As technical program co-chair, I am co-responsible for overseeing all the scientific contributions (papers) to the conference. I look forward to read all of the exciting research in the field. Please consider submitting your best work to us!

December 2020: New course to be developed "AI for an Open Society"
Together with my colleague Leendert van Maanen, I received a grant from the central university board to develop a new BSc level interdisciplinary course called "AI for an Open Society". The course will be open to students from all Bsc programs in Utrecht, and will be taught with colleagues from the social sciences, humanities, and economics and law faculty. We will teach how insights from these disciplines (e.g., cognitive models, behavioral change, ethics, management) can help to better understand how AI models, technology, and methods influence and shape society. Think of the effect AI has on filter bubbles and polarization, on the future of work, etc. I'm particularly excited about the opportunity that through this course we can reach a wide set of students that will be better prepared for the various changes that society is going through, and that they see what the implications of AI are beyond tech. It can also build on the strong Utrecht expertise on Human-centered AI and Institutions for an Open Society.

November 2020: New video on human-automation interaction
My student Jan van den Heijkant worked with me to create anoter science communication video based on our paper on the history and future of human-automation interaction. This video focuses on the interaction between trust, confusion, and incorrect use of automation. You can watch it below, and read about the science here. I think he again did an outstanding job!!

October 2020: Organizing a Dagstuhl workshop on Computational Models of Human-Automated Vehicle Interaction
I am honored that a proposal that I put forth with Antti Oulasvirta (Aalto University), Shamsi Iqbal (Microsoft Research), and Martin Baumann (Ulm University to organize a seminar on the use of computational models of human-automated vehicle interaction at Schloss Dagstuhl got accepted. Schloss Dagstuhl is a famous center that promotes advances in (interdisciplinary) computer science. In practice, it means that we can in the future use their facilities to host a seminar (mini-conference) with top researchers in this exciting field!! (due to COVID-19, it might take a while before we can start)

September 2020: Closing panel at Auto-UI 2020; and science communication video

• I am a member of the closing panel of ACM's Auto-UI 2020 conference
• My student Jan van den Heijkant worked with me to create a science communication video based on our paper on the history and future of human-automation interaction. You can watch it below, and read about the science here. I think he did an outstanding job!!

August 2020: New paper accepted
A new paper got accepted for publication:

• Janssen, C.P., Boyle, L., Ju, W., Riener, A., and Alvarez, I.(2020) Agents, Environments, Scenarios: A Framework for Examining Models and Simulations of Human-Vehicle Interaction. Transportation Research: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 8, article 100214 [Final version (open access)]

July 2020: Research discussed in Washington Post in context of the difficulty of work-life balance
One of my research papers on interruptions and productivity was cited in the Washington Post to describe why working from home can be so hard:

• Washington post article: Edwards, S.M. & Snyder, L. (10 July 2020) Yes, balancing work and parenting is impossible. Here’s the data. The Washington Post. [Link]
• Our own article: Brumby, D. P., Janssen, C. P., & Mark, G. (2019). How do interruptions affect productivity?. In Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering (pp. 85-107). Apress, Berkeley, CA. [Open Access article]

Since June 5th at 14:30 Dr Remo van der Heiden
My PhD student Remo van der Heiden has publicly defended his PhD thesis on Friday June 5th at 14:30. Congratulations Dr. Van der Heiden. I am very proud of your achievements.You can:

• Read a Dutch press release about his work here
• Watch the live broadcast of his defence here
• Download his PhD thesis from the University’s library here

May 2020: Senior teaching qualification obtained
I was awarded my senior teaching qualification by Utrecht University. The qualification is awarded to lecturers that made overarching teaching contributions that go beyond a single course. (in my case, the various contributions to the AI teaching program)

May 2020: Online public lectures
I am giving a couple of public lectures virtually. Most are open to the public:

• May 20, 16:00 (Dutch time): Lecture at UCL Interaction Centre. Interrupted by Automation? Why and how to account for human behaviour in human-automation interaction settings
  You can watch the video lecture back here
• May 28, starting at 17:30 (Dutch time): Lecture for Cognito (Student union of Amsterdam Master in Brain & Cognitive Science). Interrupted by Automation? How social and cognitive science can inform the design of better human-automation interaction More information can be found here.
• June 4th at 17:00 (Dutch time), panel discussion on robotics and the future of work. I will chair an online panel discussion, with guest speakers Dr. Maartje de Graaf, Dr. Wendy Ju, and Dr. Holly Yanco. More information, including Zoom link can be found here

March 2020: Article in Acta Psychologica, IEEE Pervasive Computing, Interactions magazine, HCII

January 2020: Focus area human-centered AI started
Utrecht University has formed a new focus area on Human-centered AI. Within this focus area I will lead the special interest group on Social and Cognitive Modeling. If you would like to join, please contact me!

September 2019: Lecturer of the year, Auto-UI, in the news
Multiple things this month:

July 2019: New paper accepted on interruptions in automated vehicles
A new paper got accepted:

May 2019: New paper accepted on history and future of human-automation research
A new paper got accepted:

April 2019: Record number submissions for Auto-UI 2019
The Auto-UI 2019 conference of which I am general chair has a record number of full paper submmissions, which are currently being reviewed by our international expert team. Of course, there are many other tracks for which you can submit such as work-in-progress, demo's, and videos.

March 2019: New paper accepted
A new paper just got accepted for publication:
Janssen, C.P., Everaert, E., Hendriksen, H., Mensing, G., Tigchelaar, L., & Nunner, H. (2019). The influence of rewards on (sub-)optimal interleaving. PLoS ONE 14(3): e0214027. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214027. [Publisher copy (open access)].

December 2018: Workshop accepted for CHI
Our workshop entitled "Looking into the Future: Weaving the Threads of Vehicle Automation" got accepted for the CHI 2019 conference. We will discuss the future of automated vehicles. It is organized together with Shadan Sadeghian Borojeni (Frauenhofer Institute), Alexander Meschtscherjakov (University of Salzburg), Bastian Pfleging (TU Eindhoven), Frank Flemisch (Frauenhofer Institute), Andrew Kun (University of New Hampshire), Andreas Riener (Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt), and Wendy Ju (Cornell Tech). More information can (soon) be found on the workshop's website.

October 2018: Marie Curie Project finished, new video online
For the past two years, my research was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 705010.


I have investigated how people's ability to detect and react to alerts changes under automated driving conditions. We recently pubished a paper about this in Plos One:

van der Heiden RMA, Janssen CP, Donker SF, Hardeman LES, Mans K, Kenemans JL (2018) Susceptibility to audio signals during autonomous driving. PLoS ONE 13(8): e0201963. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201963 [Publisher copy (open access), Video clip summarizing the work].

I also summarized it in another video clip on my youtube channel:

October 2018: External advisor of PhD student Justin Edwards
I joined the doctoral studies panel (i.e. "external advisor and collaborator") of PhD student Justin Edwards at UC Dublin. Daily supervision is by Dr. Ben Cowan. Justin studies interruptions in conversations, which ties in with my research on understanding interruptions and multitasking.

October 2018: General chair of ACM SIGCHI Auto-UI 2019 Conference & paper accepted & in the news
It's official, together with Stella Donker, I am General Chair of the ACM SIGCHI Auto-UI Conference 2019 , which will be in Utrecht, The Netherlands September 22-25 2019. Auto-UI is the premier international conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications. Attendees come from academia and industry, with diverse backgrounds including psychology, design, and engineering. Below is a picture of Stella (left) and me (far right) together with our Technical Program Chairs, Lewis Chuang and Wendy Ju. We are very much looking forward to organizing this conference!


I also had a new journal paper accepted:
Kun, A.L., van der Meulen, H., & Janssen, C.P. (in press) Calling while Driving using Augmented Reality: Blessing or Curse? Accepted for publication in Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments. [Author version]

I was also interviewed by Dutch national newspaper "De Telegraaf" for an article on Multitasking, which can be found here:

September 2018: Keynote speaker in Latvia & Auto-UI Workshop on the Mobile Office

• On September 20th, I am keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Latvian Society of Organizational Psychology, in Riga Latvia. I will discuss whether people can multitask (safely & efficiently). It is my first time to visit Latvia, and I am very much looking forward to it!
• At Auto-UI 2018 in Toronto, I am organizing a workshop on the Mobile Office together with Lewis Chuang, Andrew Kun, and Stella Donker. In preparation, each of us is writing a blog about our thoughts on this topic. You can find my blog here.
• And the workshop position paper: Chuang, L., Donker, S.F., Kun, A.L., Janssen, C.P. (2018)Workshop on The Mobile Office. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (AutomotiveUI '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 10-16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3239092.3239094 [Author version]

August 2018: New paper accepted

• van der Heiden RMA, Janssen CP, Donker SF, Hardeman LES, Mans K, Kenemans JL (2018) Susceptibility to audio signals during autonomous driving. PLoS ONE 13(8): e0201963. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201963 [Publisher copy (open access)]. Using EEG measurements, we demonstrate that the human brain's susceptibility to alerts is reduced when being driven by an autonomous vehicle.

May 2018: New paper accepted
A new paper got accepted for publication:

• Janssen, C.P., Boyle, L, Kun, A.L., Ju, W., & Chuang, L. (2019 online first) A Hidden Markov Framework to Capture Human-Machine Interaction in Automated Vehicles. Accepted for publication in International Journal of Human Computer Interaction. DOI: 10.1080/10447318.2018.1561789 [Author URL, Publisher copy (Open Access)]. This paper discusses how human beliefs about automation might not always correspond with the actual mode of the car. We provide a formal framework (Hidden Markov Models) to systematically describe such situations.

May 2018: New youtube clip
I created a new Youtube clip that explains the research of one of my recent paper. You can watch it here:

Van der Heiden, R.M.A., Janssen, C.P., Donker, S.F., Merkx, C. (2018, online first) Visual In-car Warnings: How Fast Do Drivers Respond? Transportation Research Part F: Psychology and Behaviour. Doi: 10.1016/j.trf.2018.02.024 [Publisher copy (open access)]

April 2018 Bookchapter, presentations, press

Bookchapter
A bookchapter that I wrote together with Duncan Brumby and Gloria Mark just got accepted. It will be released soon:

• April 4: Presentation at the Dutch day of traffic psychologists (Verkeersgedragdag). See their website
• April 13: I am giving a keynote presentation on Artificial Intelligene and cognitive modeling at the Dutch Neuropsychology meeting. See their website
• April 26: I am one of the panelist during the session on Automotive User Interfaces at CHI. The session starts at 9 am. See also the online program/

• I was interviewed by the Italian TV Channel RAI 3 regarding my research on multitasking.
• My research was discussed in the April 10th issue of the Dutch newspaper "De Telegraaf". Here is the picture
  

February 2018 Paper accepted
A new paper got accepted:

February 2018 New Video on Youtube channel
One of my students, Evy van Weelden, made a video clip about my past research. You can read the paper here:
Janssen, C.P., Iqbal, S.T., Ju, Y.C. (2014). Sharing a Driver’s Context with a Caller via Continuous Audio Cues to Increase Awareness about Driver State. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20(3), 270-284. doi: 10.1037/xap0000020 [Author URL, Publisher URL, Supplementary Material, Video describing the work, Video of simulator set-up]

and watch the video clip below:

November 2017 Nominated for "senior lecturer of the year" in psychology
I was very proud and humbled to receive news this week that for the second year I was nominated by my colleagues for the Maarten van Son "senior lecturer of the year in psychology" award.

September 2017
I will give a couple of public lectures the coming weeks:

• September 7th 2017, I give a public lecture on autonomous driving as part of the science cafe in Nijmegen. See their website.
• September 21st 2017, I give a public lecture on AI, Cognitive Science, and Automation at the SSR
• September 28th 2017, I am an invited speaker at a summer school on Engineering Safety Critical systems, in Oldenburg Germany. The program of the summer school can be found here
• October 23rd, 2017, I take part in a science cafe in Utrecht to discuss "intelligence". See the website of Studium Generale Utrecht. Here's a promovideo:

May 2017
We are presenting our research at CHI on the effectiveness of pre-alerts to support handover in semi-autonomous vehicles. Here are the links to the paper:
Van der Heiden, R.M.A., Iqbal, S.T., & Janssen, C.P. (2017) Priming drivers before handover in semi-autonomous cars. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. New York, NY: ACM Press. pp. 392-404 [Author version, Publisher version, video preview clip, Video clip of conference presentation]
You can watch Remo's presentation at the conference here:

May 2017
Another paper got accepted!
Farmer, G.D, Janssen, C.P., Nguyen, T. T., & Brumby, D.P. (2018). Dividing attention between tasks: Testing whether explicit payoff functions elicit optimal dual-task performance. Cognitive Science, 42(3), pp.820-849 [Author URL, Publisher copy (open access)]

April 2017
Multiple papers got accepted:

• Poos, J., Van den Bosch, K., & Janssen, C.P. (2017) Battling Bias: Effects of Training and Training Context. Computers & Education, 111, 101-113 doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2017.04.004 [Publisher URL]This work is based on Jackie Poos' research thesis that I supervised together with Karel van den Bosch at TNO.
• Brumby, D.P., Janssen, C.P., Kujala, T., Salvucci, D.D. (in press) Computational models of user multitasking. Book chapter written for the book "Computational Interaction Design".
• Kun, A., Van der Meulen, H, & Janssen, C.P. (2017) Calling while driving: an initial experiment with hololens. Proceedings of the 9th International Driving Symposium on Human Factors in Driver Assessment, Training and Vehicle Design. [Author URL]

March 2017
I gave a public lecture ("studium generale") about Cognitive Modeling (in Dutch). A video recording of the event can be found here: on the studium generale homepage

February 2017
Four abstracts from Utrecht were selected for poster or oral presentation at the Dutch traffic psychology meeting in The Hague, on April 5th. See the website: website. Remo van der Heiden will present our recent work on early alerts in autonomous cars; I will present work on EEG/ERP research in autonomous cars.

January 2017
I started a Youtube channel to share videoclips that summarize my research. This will be a work in progress and take some time, but the first clip is online now! here

December 2016

• Our paper got accepted for CHI 2017:
  Van der Heiden, R.M.A., Iqbal, S.T., & Janssen, C.P. (2017) Priming drivers before handover in semi-autonomous cars. Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. [Author version, Publisher version, video preview clip]
  This work is in collaboration with Dr. Shamsi Iqbal from Microsoft Research and is the first paper of my PhD student Remo van der Heiden.
• I was interviewed for Science News Five challenges for self-driving cars. I was asked what the big challenges are in autonomous driving for the next few years. My section is headed "human-robot interaction". Science news, Vol. 190, No. 13, December 24, 2016, p. 34. You can read the article here

November 2016 Nominated for "senior lecturer of the year" in psychology
I was very proud and humbled to receive news this week that I was nominated by my colleagues for the Maarten van Son "senior lecturer of the year in psychology" award.

November 2016 Paper accepted
A paper from my time at Smith-Kettlewell just got accepted for publication in Journal of Vision! In the paper we describe a method in which we try to teach people with macular degeneration to make more efficient eye-movements to compensate for visual sight loss. This was a very challenging project, in which I learned many new skills. I am very proud of the result
Janssen, C.P. & Verghese, P. (2016) Training eye movements for visual search in individuals with macular degeneration. Journal of Vision, 16(15):29, 1-20, doi:10.1167/16.15.29 [Publisher URL]

October 2016Three items:
- Congratulations to my former student Jackie Poos, who got nominated for the "Peter G. Swanborn prize" for social empirical research, based on her dissertation research with me and Karel van den Bosch at TNO. Jackie investigated whether games are an effective medium to reduce cognitive biases. More information can be found here
- October 6th: I was an invited speaker at the first international neuroergonomics conference in Paris (see here). I spoke in the session on driver distraction.
- October 9th: I will give a presentation to 80 children in the age range 7-12 on whether computera and humans think alike. See here

September 2016Two items:
- Research on my Marie Curie project has started. For the next two years I will investige in detail how well people detect and react to various alerts while driving in (semi-) autonomous vehicles
- Research by my student Iris van Hooijdonk has been published in an official report by the Dutch Ministry of Transportation. Iris observed how frequently cyclists and pedestrians run red lights at bridges. You can read the report here (including English summary): [RWS page]

August 2016 Congratulations to my MSc student Hidde van der Meulen. Work based of his masters thesis research got accepted for oral presentation at Auto-UI 2016. Hidde did his work at the lab of Andrew Kun in New Hampshire. The paper is called "Switching back to manual driving: How does it compare to simply driving away after parking?" by Van der Meulen, Kun, and Janssen.

July 2016 On September 1st I will speak at a symposium on Human Factors organized by Intergo, see The lustrum website.

June 2016 I joined the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies as an associate editor. IJHCS is ranked 1st out of all HCI journals by both Microsoft Academic Search and Google Scholar. I previously edited a special issue for this journal on multitasking and interruptions. You can find that special issue here. You can also read our editor's introduction to the special issue: [Author URL, Publisher URL ]

June 2016 I take part in various public lectures. On June 10th I am moderator at a student lead symposium on Human-Robot Interaction in Utrecht, organized by Incognito. On June 23rd I am invited speaker at a symposium on human multitasking, organized in Groningen, see here.

April 2016Our lab was on national television. The TV program "Galileo" filmed an item on multitasking: are men better than women? The item was viewed by almost 400 000 live viewers. You can watch a short snippet here:

March 2016 Congratulations to my PhD student Remo van der Heiden and Master students Elcke de Geus and Iris van Hooijdonk who will present their research as plenary talks during the Dutch "Traffic behavior days" (verkeersgedragdag). Website: Verkeersgedragdag.

March 2016 Congratulations to my PhD student Remo van der Heiden, who's MSc thesis work (also conducted in my lab and together with Dutch Ministry of Transportation) is on the short-list for the Vliegenthart thesis award for best MSc thesis in the social sciences. Final results will be announced in April.

January 2016 I was awarded a Marie Curie reintegration grant from the European Union to do more research on driver distraction, autonomous driving and physiological measurement. The reintegration grants are aimed at researchers who spent significant time outside of Europe and now want to lay the foundation for their own lab. The formal reference is that this is a grant of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 705010.

January 2016 The RTL TV program Galileo filmed an item in my lab. Galileo is a TV program that explains science to the general public. Presenters Manuel Venderbos and Shelly Sterk visited my lab to test how efficient people are at multitasking, and to see whether women are truly better at multitasking than men. You can see a picture on my Media page

October 2015 I was awarded funding from the Dutch Ministry of Transportation (Rijkswaterstaat) to investigate human behavior in autonomous driving. The project will form part of the PhD studies of Remo van der Heiden, for whom I will be the primary supervisor, together with Dr. Stella Donker and Prof. Leon Kenemans. More details will be released in due time.

September 2015 On September 13th 2015 I will give a public lecture on Alan Turing's work (specifically: the Turing Machine and Turing Test) followed by a screening of the film "The imitation game" at the Dutch Film Festival "Film by the Sea" in Vlissingen. More information can be found here: Film by the Sea Website. The lecture takes place in the "Omega" trajectory about art, science, artificial intelligence and memory.

August 2015 Expert opinion on turning down the radio when parking your car
I wrote on expert opinion for "Hopes and Fears", a New York based news website on the question "Why do people turn down the volume of the radio when parking their car". You can read my insight here: hopes and fears website.

July 2015 Organizing workshop on Cognitive load and In-Vehicle Human-Machine Interaction
In September I am organizing the 5th workshop on Cognitive Load and In-Vehicle Human-Machine Interaction preceding the ACM automotive User Interface conference in Nottingham, UK (see: www.auto-ui.org/15). I organize the workshop with some of the leaders in academia and industry, including: Andrew Kun (U. New Hampshire), Paul Green (U Michigan), Bryan Reimer (MIT), Ivan Tashev (Microsoft Research), and Thomas Gable (Georgia Tech). More information on the workshop and a call for position papers will follow soon. The website of the workshop can be found here.
In addition, I will be attending the workshop on User experience of Autonomous Vehicles (see: website other workshop, where I present my position paper "Multitasking in Autonomous Vehicles: Ready to Go?" together with Leon Kenemans.

May 2015 Journal paper accepted
A paper got accepted for publication at Plos One: Janssen, C.P. & Brumby, D.P. (2015) Strategic Adaptation to Task Characteristics, Incentives, and Individual Differences in Dual-Tasking. Plos One, 10(7): e0130009, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0130009 [Publisher URL]

May 2015 Public lectures coming up
Over the next months I will give various public lectures on Artificial Intelligence, Modeling, and Psychology:

• May 27: Invited presentation for 80-100 honors students of Utrecht's Science program. The lecture will focus on the role of cognitive modeling in Artificial Intelligence. See: Honors' students website
• June 18: Invited presentation for our Artificial Intelligence students, organized by their student union Incognito.
• September: Invited lecture at International Film Festival Film by the Sea. I will give a lecture related to AI and psychology, as part of a track focusing on science. More details to be released soon.

April 2015 Special issue released
Our special issue on multitasking and interruptions has been released:
Janssen, C.P., Gould, S.J.J., Li, S.Y.W., Brumby, D.P., and Cox, A.L. (2015) Integrating Knowledge of Multitasking and Interruptions Across Different Perspectives and Research Methods. Special issue for International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. Volume 79, Pages 1-126 (July 2015) [Overview of articles].
For our introductory article, please see:
Janssen, C.P., Gould, S.J.J., Li, S.Y.W., Brumby, D.P., & Cox, A.L. (2015). Integrating Knowledge of Multitasking and Interruptions Across Different Perspectives and Research Methods. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 79, 1-5. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2015.03.002 [Author URL, Publisher URL ]

March 2015 Special issue in print
Our special issue on multitasking and interruptions for the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies is almost ready! All articles are in print. This includes our introductory article, in which we summarize the state of the art in the field and propose a research agenda for furthering research into multitasking and interruptions: Janssen, C.P., Gould, S.J.J., Li, S.Y.W., Brumby, D.P., & Cox, A.L. (2015). Integrating Knowledge of Multitasking and Interruptions Across Different Perspectives and Research Methods. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 79, 1-5. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2015.03.002 [Author URL, Publisher URL ]

February 2015 Lots of good news!

• A paper got accepted for the journal of vision - one of the leading journals on vision sciences. The paper is: Janssen, C.P. & Verghese, P. (2015). Stop before you saccade: Looking into an artificial peripheral scotoma. Journal of Vision, 15(5) article 7:1-19 doi:10.1167/15.5.7.[Publisher URL]. In this paper we investigate what strategies people use to perform an object-comparison task when part of the screen is hidden by an artificial scotoma (a blindspot). Apart from being motivated by theoretical work, this paper also forms a useful fundament for my more clinical work with patients who have macular degeneration (work done at Smith-Kettlewell, paper in preparation).
• I received a small grant from Utrecht's Neuroscience and Cognition program group. The grant will be used to start a new research line together with Prof. Leon Kenemans and Dr. Matthijs Vink (University Medical Hospital) looking at the ability to detect and respond to unexpected events while multitasking in automated environments.
• Recent work with Preeti Verghese got accepted for oral presentation at ARVO. The work is entitled "Scotoma Awareness and Eye Movement Training in Age-Related Macular Degeneration" and discusses our recent work that looked at ways to make eye-movements more efficient for patients with vision loss due to macular degeneration - one of the leading causes of vision loss. See also my description of this work here. ARVO is the largest conference of vision and eye researchers in the world, with over 11,000 attendants.
• The work of my MSc student Kimberly Hulleman made it to the local papers. Kimberly is investigating the potential impact of autonomous driving on hazard detection. The research is being conducted at the SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research. Read the article here

July 2014 In October I will start as an assistant professor in experimental psychology at Utrecht University (The Netherlands).

June 2014 The formatted version of my latest journal paper is now online: Janssen, C.P., Iqbal, S.T., Ju, Y.C. (2014). Sharing a Driver’s Context with a Caller via Continuous Audio Cues to Increase Awareness about Driver State. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20(3), 270-284. doi: 10.1037/xap0000020 [Author URL, Publisher URL, Supplementary Material, Video]

April 2014 Lots of good news:

• I received the 2014 Briggs Award for the Best Doctoral Dissertation in Applied Experimental/Engineering Psychology, awarded by the APA 21 division (American Psychological Association, division for applied experimental and engineering psychology, see their site). As part of the prize I am invited to give a talk at the 2015 APA meeting.
• A journal paper got accepted, which reports on my work at Microsoft Research:
  Janssen, C.P., Iqbal, S.T., Ju, Y.C. (2014). Sharing a Driver’s Context with a Caller via Continuous Audio Cues to Increase Awareness about Driver State. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20(3), 270-284 [Author URL].
• We are organizing a Special Interest Group meeting on Interaction Science at CHI on April 29th at 2 pm. Watch the video premiere: Here. For even more information on "Interaction Science at CHI, check this site.