Toward an Agenda for Error Research

Abstract

There has been a great increase in interest in human error and its impact on the individual and society in recent years. The present symposium is but one example of this in a restricted area. Several general accounts of human error and the psychological mechanisms which underlie it have appeared in recent years, but for the most part these have concentrated on accounts of error based on research on the cognitive psychology of the individual. In this paper I discuss a more general framework for the stidy of error, not for the purpose of understanding it alone, but rather for putting into place a program for muitigating its effect in the larger arena of social impact. Only by integrating research at a variety of levels and using a variety of techniques can we hope to understand and control the effects of error.