Advances in human-error evaluation

This paper discusses an approach which places the proper focus upon latent events and the consideration of the "compelling signals" given to operators for actions which may trigger potential accident scenarios. These findings are based upon years of research into the fundamentals of the human cognition process. In particular, it has involved detailed investigations into the interactions between the decision making or action taking cognitive function and the information storage and retrieval functions of both the long term and short term memory. The application of these findings, and the extant body of knowledge on fundamental human thought and action constraints, to the postulation of a paradigm for human error avoidance is also discussed. These concepts were assembled during a study of human error considerations for the aerospace industry. Here an attempt is made to define the most effective design guidance to allow the human to perform the task at hand, most reliably, given the response time available and the related information processing capability of the brain.