Research Interests

Human-Machine Interaction
Humans have the ability to construct and use complicated machinery, but not all machines are easy, efficient, or safe to operate. I conduct research on the mental functions involved when human interact with technology to inform design principles that facilitate the construction of machines that are intuitive to learn and operate safely.  

Creativity in Design and Engineering
Our world today is saturated with machines and electronics, and these products reflect the amazing ability of humans to use creativity to shape their own environments. Innovation is a hallmark of human behavior, and yet, the environmental factors that facilitate human creativity are very poorly understood. I conduct research about the types of design environments that tend to facilitate creativity in fields of design and engineering in order to advance psychologists' understanding of these complex mental processes, and with the goal of maximizing innovation in design and engineering. 

Group Processes
Humans often work together in groups at school, at work, and even at play to accomplish complex goals, but research has documented that group work can both facilitate and impair task performance. Because humans do often work together, a better understanding of group processes would inform when students or employees should do so to maximize learning, efficiency, or safety.  I conduct research to try and better understand how groups work together.

Judgment and Decision Making
Human judgment is extremely complex, rarely maximized, and often counter intuitive.  I study a variety of judgment and decision-making paradigms, including how people make evaluations (e.g., end-of-course instructor evaluations), and how different types of feedback can change a person's own decision making for the better.

Task-Set Switching
Humans constantly switch between mental tasks in their daily lives, and each time a human switches between mental tasks, they experience a slight performance decrement on the subsequent task. My research examines the mental and environmental factors that spur humans to make these types of switches in the first place, and what factors may inhibit such switch behaviors, especially when humans are performing demanding tasks that tax attentional systems. My research attempts to better understand what types of stimuli help to facilitate what I call 'reactive' task-set switching.

Graduate Students
Dr. Youmans is currently accepting MA students from CSUN’s General Experimental and Human Factors masters programs.  Students must be first-year graduate students, preferably in their first semester. Dr. Youmans only accepts a maximum of one student per year.