A. Rodney Wellens
A. Rodney Wellens, Ph.D.
Professor
Chairman, Department of Psychology
Vanderbilt University, 1972
Telemediated communication; nonverbal communication, stress and decision making.
Research Interests
Electronic communication media can be categorized according to the number of sensory channels simultaneously involved in transmitting and receiving messages. "Broad bandwidth" communication devices like two-way TV allow a variety of verbal and nonverbal signals to be exchanged that are filtered out by "narrow bandwidth" devices like email. A "psychological distancing model" has been used to generate and test a number of hypotheses concerning differences between face-to-face, two-way television, telephone and email messaging systems.
Experiments have included measuring differences in the ability of decision makers to form accurate situation assessments when linked to teammates by different kinds of electronic media; differences in the amount of self-disclosure observed in clients when interacting with therapists over different kinds of communication devices; differences in the perception of therapists and the therapeutic process by clients in different communication settings; and the willingness/unwillingness of test subjects to deceive others when communicating over narrow versus broad bandwidth communication devices.
By studying the ways in which affective and cognitive information can be encoded and decoded across different types of electronic media, insights can also be gained regarding the design of appropriate interfaces for human-intelligent machine interaction. The "social psychology of intelligent machines" represents an interdisciplinary approach to studying the positive and negative effects of creating human-machine teams via channels of communication previously reserved for human-to-human interaction.
Selected Publications
McCabe, P., Schneiderman, N., Field, T., & Wellens, R. (eds.). (2000) Stress, Coping and Cardiovascular Disease. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Wellens, A.R. & McNeese, M.D. (1999). "The social psychology of intelligent machines: A research agenda revisited". In H. Bullinger & J. Ziegler (Eds.), Human-Computer Interaction: Ergonomics and User Interfaces (pp. 696 - 700). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Wellens, A. R. (1993). "Group situation awareness and distributed decision making: From military to civilian applications". In J. Castellan (Ed.), Individual and group decision making: Current Issues (pp. 267-291). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Brown, C. E., Swierenga, S. J., & Wellens, A. R. (1991). "Social psychological metaphors for human-computer system design". Proceedings of the IEEE National Aerospace and Electronics Conference, Vol. 2 , 793-799. New York: The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
Pozo, C., Carver, C., Wellens, A. R., & Scheier, M. (1991). "Social anxiety and social perception: Construing others' reactions to the self". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 17, 355-362.
Wellens, A. R. (1991). "Electronic collaboration: Some effects of telecommunication media and machine intelligence on team performance". Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Workshop on Space Operations, Applications and Research (SOAR '90). (NASA Conference Publication 3101, Vol. 2, 606-611). Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Wellens, A. R., Brown, C. E., & McNeese, M. D. (1991). Assessing electronic team technologies using computer-based dynamic decision making tasks. In Y. Queinnec & F. Daniellou (eds.) "Designing for everyone": Proceedings of the Eleventh Congress of the International Ergonomics Association, Vol. 1, 667-669. London: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
Wellens, A. R. (1990). "Assessing multi-person and person-machine distributed decision making using an extended psychological distancing model". AAMRL-TR-90-006. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio: Armstrong Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory.
Wellens, A. R. (1989). "Effects of telecommunication media upon information sharing and team performance: Some theoretical and empirical observations". IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, Vol. 4, 13 -19. New York: The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
Snyder, D., Wellens, A.R., Brown, C., & McNeese, M. (1989). "Three paradigms for the study of multi-person and human-machine interaction". Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man & Cybernetics, Vol. II, 480-481.