Following the theme for this year's conference, this paper contributes to ongoing discussions defining the future of cognitive engineering research by examining a part of its past. The history of one particular line of research, that of the Electronics Department at Risø National Laboratory, is reviewed. A number of important studies, conducted between 1962 and 1979, are briefly described. Among these are operational experience acquired from the introduction of a prototype digital console in a nuclear research reactor, two field studies of professional operators conducting representative tasks in representative settings (electronic trouble-shooting and conventional power plant control), and analyses of over 645 human error reports in the nuclear and aviation industries. Some of the themes characterizing the Risø research program in cognitive engineering are briefly summarized. These themes help define what cognitive engineering is, and what it might be concerned with in the future.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
EasterJ. R. (1987). Engineering human factors into the Westinghouse advanced control room. Nuclear Engineering International, 32 (May), 35–38.
2.
EndsleyM. R.KleinG.WoodsD. D.SmithP. J.SelconS. J. (1995). Future directions in cognitive engineering and naturalistic decision making. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 40th Annual Meeting (pp. 450–453). Santa Monica, CA: HFES.
3.
FeynmanR. P. (1966). The development of the space-time view of quantum electrodynamics. Science, 153, 699–708.
4.
FischoffB.SlovicP.LichtensteinS. (1978). Fault trees: Sensitivity of estimated failure probabilities to problem representation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 4, 330–344.
5.
GoodsteinL. P. (1968). An experimental computer-controlled instrumentation system for the research reactor DR-2. In Application of on-line computers to nuclear reactors (pp. 549–566). Halden, Norway: OECD Halden Reactor Project.
6.
HollnagelE.WoodsD. D. (1983). Cognitive systems engineering: New wine in new bottles. International Journal of Man-Machine Systems, 18, 583–600.
7.
HullD. L. (1988). Science as a process: An evolutionary account of the social and conceptual developments of science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
8.
ItohJ.SakumaA.MontaK. (1995). An ecological interface for supervisory control of BWR nuclear power plants. Control Engineering Practice, 3, 231–239.
9.
JensenA.RasmussenJ.TimmennanP. (1963). Analysis of failure data for electronic equipment at Risø (Risø Report No. 38). Roskilde, Denmark: Danish Atomic Energy Commission, Research Establishment Risø.
10.
MeisterD. (1995). Divergent viewpoints: Essays on human factors questions. Unpublished manuscript.
11.
MorayN. (1988). Ex Risø semper aliquid antiquum: Sources of a new paradigm for engineering psychology. In GoodsteinL. P.AndersenH. B.OlsenS. E. (Eds.), Tasks, errors, and mental models: A festschrift to celebrate the 60th birthday of Professor Jens Rasmussen (pp. 12–17). London: Taylor and Francis.
12.
NormanD. A. (1981). Steps toward a cognitive engineering: System images, system friendliness, mental models (Tech. Rep.). La Jolla, CA: UCSD.
13.
NormanD. A. (1986). Cognitive engineering. In NormanD. A.DraperS. W. (Eds.), User centered system design: New perspectives on human-computer interaction (pp. 31–61). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
14.
NormanD. A. (1993). Things that make us smart: Defending human attributes in the age of the machine. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
15.
RasmussenJ. (1968a). On the communication between operators and instrumentation in automatic process control plants (Risø-M-686). Roskilde, Denmark: Danish Atomic Energy Commission, Research Establishment Risø.
16.
RasmussenJ. (1968b). On the reliability of process plants and instrumentation systems (Risø-M-706). Roskilde, Denmark: Danish Atomic Energy Commission, Research Establishment Risø.
17.
RasmussenJ. (1968c). Characteristics of operator, automatic equipment and designer in plant automation (Risø-M-808). Roskilde, Denmark: Danish Atomic Energy Commission, Research Establishment Risø.
18.
RasmussenJ. (1969). Man-machine communication in tire light of accident records (S-1-69). Roskilde, Denmark: Danish Atomic Energy Commission, Research Establishment Risø.
19.
RasmussenJ. (1974). The human data processor as a system component: Bits and pieces of a model (Risø-M-1722). Roskilde, Denmark: Danish Atomic Energy Commission.
20.
RasmussenJ. (1978). Operator/technician errors in calibration, setting, and testing nuclear power plant equipment (N-17-78). Roskilde, Denmark: Risø National Laboratory, Electronics Department.
21.
RasmussenJ. (1979a). Preliminary analysis of human error cases in U.S. licencee event reports (N-8-79). Roskilde, Denmark: Risø National Laboratory, Electronics Department.
22.
RasmussenJ. (1979b). On the structure of knowledge - A morphology of mental models in a man-machine system context (Risø-M-2192). Roskilde, Denmark: Risø National Laboratory, Electronics Department.
23.
RasmussenJ. (1986). Information processing and human-machine interaction: An approach to cognitive engineering. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
24.
RasmussenJ.JensenA. (1973). A study of mental procedures in electronic trouble shooting (Risø-M-1582). Roskilde, Denmark: Danish Atomic Energy Commission, Research Establishment Risø.
25.
RasmussenJ.TimmermanP. (1962). Safety and reliability of reactor instrumentation with redundant instrument channels (Risø Report No. 34). Roskilde, Denmark: Danish Atomic Energy Commission, Research Establishment Risø.
26.
RasmussenJ.PejtersenA. M.GoodsteinL. P. (1994). Cognitive systems engineering. New York: Wiley.
27.
ReasonJ. (1990). Human error. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
28.
RouseW. B. (1988). Ladders, levels and lapses; and other distinctions in the contributions of Jens Rasmussen. In GoodsteinL. P.AndersenH. B.OlsenS. E. (Eds.), Tasks, errors and mental models: A festschrift to celebrate the 60th birthday of Professor Jens Rasmussen (pp. 315–323). London: Taylor and Francis.
29.
SandersonP. M.HarwoodK. (1988). The skills, rules, and knowledge classification: A discussion of its emergence and nature. In GoodsteinL. P.AndersenH. B.OlsenS. E. (Eds.), Tasks, errors, and mental models: A festschrift to celebrate the 60th birthday of Professor Jens Rasmussen (pp. 21–34). London: Taylor and Francis.
30.
VicenteK. J. (1997). Heeding the legacy of Meister, Brunswik, and Gibson: Toward a broader view of human factors research. Human Factors, 39.
31.
VicenteK. J.RasmussenJ. (1992). Ecological interface design: Theoretical foundations. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, SMC-22, 589–606.
32.
VicenteK. J.WangJ.(in press). An ecological theory of expertise effects in memory recall. Psychological Review.
33.
WoodsD. D.WattsJ. C.GrahamJ. M.KidwellD. L.SmithP. J. (1996). Teaching cognitive systems engineering. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 40th Annual Meeting (pp. 259–263). Santa Monica, CA: HFES.
