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HF Day 3: The Second Cognitive Revolution (an SRE perspective)
This is the third of a series of posts about the “Critical Thinking in Safety” lab put on by Lund University in Lund, Sweden as part of their Human Factors in System Safety MSc. You can find part one (and an index) here.
Note: An earlier version of this article stated that Heinrich favored predictive methods, and that he was the official source of the “if you reduce the number of accidents, you reduce the number of incidents” concept. This updated version has corrected both points. 2/8/2019
Day 3 began with a brief summary of some key points from different schools of thought on how to be safe (or reliable!). Here they are:
Behaviorism
- Input →Output
- Stimuli →Response
- Sticks & carrots
- Safety and competence measured on output alone
- The mind is a black box
Information Processing
- Cognitive Psychology
- You should measure memory, fatigue, and perception. The black box of the mind is open and will teach us how to be safe
- You should keep Situational Awareness (SA)
- Physiological measures (heart rate etc) are important
I should note that I find the concepts of SA dangerous, and a regression to Behaviorism hidden in sheep’s clothing. To me it simply seems another way to judge people only on their output and punish them, rather than looking at the deeper system and how to make it better.
Joint Cognitive Systems (JCS)
This one is new! Here are some highlights we will discuss further:
- Close the black box of the mind again. We’re paying too much attention to the wrong things
- Focus on the interactions between components (be they people, scripts, servers, etc), not just those components in isolation. Look…
