[Spotlight] HiACE Lab Presents and Receives Recognition at HFES 2025

Members of the Human-in-the-loop Advanced Cognitive Engineering (HiACE) Lab actively participated in the 69th Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) International Annual Meeting, held October 13–17, 2025, in Chicago, Illinois.

PhD students Kaiser Hamid and Peihang Li, under the supervision of Dr. Nade Liang, presented their latest research on human–automation interaction and driver cognition.

Kaiser presented “A New Evaluation Metric for Takeover Maneuver Quality: Comparing Human Drivers with Autonomous Driving Agents.” This work introduces a new framework for quantifying takeover maneuver performance to better assess human–automation collaboration.

Peihang presented “Asymmetric Shifts in Risk Perception: Evaluating Driver Responses to Traffic Density Transitions.” His research examines how perceived risk changes dynamically with traffic conditions, with implications for safer driver-assistance systems.

During the conference, Peihang also received the PPTG Student Research Grant from the Perception and Performance Technical Group of HFES. The HiACE Lab team also joined the Texas Tech HFES Chapter for a group dinner celebrating collaboration and research excellence.