Human factors engineering can be defined as the application of scientific principles, methods, and data drawn from a variety of disciplines to the development of engineering systems in which people play a significant role. Since human factors issues arise in every domain in which humans interact with the products of a technological society, six areas in which basic research is needed to improve the scientific basis of applied human factors work have been identified. These areas include: (1) human decision-making; (2) eliciting information from experts; (3) user-computer interaction; (4) supervisory control systems; (5) population group differences; and (6) applied methods (including education in this field). Each area is discussed in a separate chapter designed to be a self-contained report of the research needs in that area. (JN)