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L Sjoberg

Publications and source records attributed to L Sjoberg.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Newspaper reporting of hazards in the UK and Sweden.

Public understanding of risks is likely to be informed by the media. We report a cross-national study looking at how newspapers in Sweden and the United Kingdom characterize a variety of risks, focusing on two months around the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. Approximately four times as many reports about risks were found in Sweden as in the U.K., possibly reflecting a Swedish safety culture. The Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) crisis dominated reporting in both countries, especially in the U.K. The proportion and pattern of reports on Chernobyl was similar across countries. However, in Sweden, there was an increase in reports about other nuclear hazards after the anniversary, suggesting that generalization of media concern may have occurred. Generally, BSE was discussed using a greater number of characterizations in the U.K., while Chernobyl was reported using more characterizations in Sweden. Reports about hazards tended to be alarmist rather than reassuring, and rarely used statistics to express degrees of risk.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

Factors in risk perception

Risk perception is a phenomenon in search of an explanation. Several approaches are discussed in this paper. Technical risk estimates are sometimes a potent factor in accounting for perceived risk, but in many important applications it is not. Heuristics and biases, mainly availability, account for only a minor portion of risk perception, and media contents have not been clearly implicated in risk perception. The psychometric model is probably the leading contender in the field, but its explanatory value is only around 20% of the variance of raw data. Adding a factor of "unnatural risk" considerably improves the psychometric model. Cultural Theory, on the other hand, has not been able to explain more than 5-10% of the variance of perceived risk, and other value scales have similarly failed. A model is proposed in which attitude, risk sensitivity, and specific fear are used as explanatory variables; this model seems to explain well over 30-40% of the variance and is thus more promising than previous approaches. The model offers a different type of psychological explanation of risk perception, and it has many implications, e.g., a different approach to the relationship between attitude and perceived risk, as compared with the usual cognitive analysis of attitude.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1997

Information complexity--mental workload and performance in combat aircraft.

The purpose of the present study was to analyse the effects of information complexity on Pilot Mental WorkLoad (PMWL) and Pilot Performance (PP), and to analyse the structure of PMWL. Eighteen pilots performed 72 simulated low level-high speed emissions. The complexity of the Head Down Display (HDD) information varied as a function of the tactical situation. Flight data were recorded continuously. The pilots' eye movements were video taped and psychophysiological activation data, Heart Rate (HR), were obtained. The pilots rated PMWL according to the psychological content of three scales (Bedford Rating Scale, Subjective Workload Assessment Technique, NASA-Task Load indeX) and answered a questionnaire tapping aspects of performance, information load, motivation and mood. It was found that even a moderate complexity of information interfered with the flight task. Altitude and variation in altitude were increased and corrections of altitude errors were delayed, when complexity increased. Changes in information load reached its maximum influence on flight performance (r = 0.60, p < 0.001) after a time delay of 20 to 40 seconds. Performance of the flight task correlated positively (r = 0.59, p <0.001) with the performance of the information handling task (Tactical Situation Awareness, TSA). Durations and frequencies of eye fixations Head Up (HU) versus Head Down (HD) changed as a function of information load. A structural equation model implied that PMWL was affected by mission complexity and that PMWL affected objective and subjective aspects of flight performance and information handling. Heart rate (sortie means) correlated positively with PMWL (r = 0.34, p <0.05) and perceived complexity of mission (r = 0.37, p < 0.01). Heart rate (running means) covaried with variations in information complexity for those pilots who performed well. From spectral analyses of cardiac interval times it was found that the amplitude of the 0.10 Hz component tended to decrease during high as compared to low levels of information load.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Comparison of bacteriophage typing, serotyping, and biotyping as aids in epidemiological surveillance of Klebsiella infections.

Bacteriophage typing was used to subdivide Klebsiella obtained from patients in a surgical intensive care unit during a 2-year period. The 15 phages employed to type the strains were propagated by a soft-agar layer technique. In all, 23 phage types were found among the 120 clinical strains. The phage types of repeat isolates were reproducible. Only 70% of the strains tested were phage typable, but when used in conjunction with capsular serotyping and biotyping, a much greater subdivision of the Klebsiella strains was achieved. The addition of phage typing to serobiotyping for epidemiological analysis suggested that the number of cross-infecting Klebsiella strains in the intensive care unit was few, but that these strains persisted in the unit for long periods of time and could infect different body sites.

Bacteriophage Typing↗