Human Factors in Automated and Robotic Space Systems Proceedings of a Symposium (1987) / Chapter Skim
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Decision Making-Aided and Unaided
Decision Making-Aided and Unaided
Pages 234-262
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From page 234... ...
Indeed, space travel would be impossible without extensive computer-controlled decision mating for problems involving great computational complexity or time pressure (e.g., luring launch)
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From page 235... ...
Yet, however far these developments progress, there will always be some decisions that are left entirely to human judgment and some elements of judgment in even the most automated decisions. For example, there is no formula for unambiguously determining which basic design configuration will pro five best in all anticipated circumstances (much less unanticipated ones)
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From page 236... ...
The results of research in behavioral decision theory have shown a mixture of strengths and weaknesses in people's attempts to make decisions On complex and uncertain environments. These intuitive psychological processes pose constraints on the decision-making tasks that can be imposed on people and, hence, on the quality of the performance that can be expected from them.
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From page 237... ...
Scme decisions involve only undesirable options, while the uncertainty surrounding other decisions means that bad things will happen to some good choices. The following is a partial list of decisions that Light arise in the course of designing and operating a space station.
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. As mentioned, the hope of behavioral decision theory is to discern basic psychological processes likely to recur wherever a particular kind of judgment is required.
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From page 239... ...
, and by describing the definitiveness of its reccmmen~ations. A better understanding of how people intuitively make decisions would facilitate attaining these objectives, as well as developing training procedures to help people make judgments and decisions wherever they arise.
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m ey have a rough feeling for when they know more and when they know less, but not enough sensitivity to avoid a commonly observed tendency toward overconfidence (Fischhoff, 1982; Walisten and Budescu, 1983~. According to decision theory, the final stage of decision making should involve implementation of an expectation rule, whereby an option is evaluated according to the attractiveness of its possible consequences, weighted by their probability of occurrence.
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From page 241... ...
Life poses a variety of decisions, some of which are sensitive to even modest imprecision in their formulation or in the estimation of their parameters, some of which yield an optimal choice with almost any sensible procedure, and some of which can tolerate occasional inaccuracies, but.not recurrent problems, such as persistently exaggerating how much one knows (Henrion, 1980; Krzysztofawicz, 1983; McCormick, 1981; von Winterfel~t and Edwards, 1982~. Placing decisions within a group or organizational context may ameliorate or exacerbate problems, depending on how carefully members scrutinize one another's decisions, how independent are the perspectives that they bring to that scrutiny, and whether that social context has an incentive structure that rewards effective decision making (as opposed to rewarding those who posture or routinely affirm common ~ sconceptions)
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From page 242... ...
. Or, it may be an explicit coordinated model, such AL those used In design processes guided by procedure= like probabilistic risk analysis (McCormick, 1981; U.S.
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From page 243... ...
can offer insight into most decision-making problems, if decision makers can describe their situations in terms of options, consequences, tradeoffs, and probabilities ark if they can recognize how the problem described in the malel differs fan their actual problem. probabilistic risk analyses can aid radiators ark designers to urxierst~ the reliability of nuclear power plants by pooling the knc~riedge of diver';e gr ~ of engineers and operators -- as lord as everyone remembers that such models cannot capture phenomena such as the " mtellectu21 common mode failure" that arises when operators misunderstand an emergency situation in the same way.
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From page 244... ...
For operators, this residual uncertainty crib the constant possibility of havir~to override the system, in onierto rescue it freon same unanticipated circumstance or r ~ nse. That override ~ ght involve anything from a mild course correction to a fun~ament=1 intervention signalling deep distrust of a system that seems on the verge of di=~-=ter.
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From page 245... ...
That may happen, for example, when problems fall at the intersection of several jurisdictions or when they require tradeoffs regarding which the organization lacks policy. In such situations, decision making may be seen as involving sever al kinds of "research." These include understanding the interactions among subsystems previously thought to be relatively independent, discerning how the organization's underlying safety philosophy applies to a particular novel case, generating action options to evaluate, and ferreting shared misconceptions.
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Skill 4: evaluating the quality of the model. IN the case of a probabilistic risk analysis, exercise of the first skill would include determining which pipers of physical equipment (e.g., valves, controls, piping)
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Understanding thence properties of modeling languages is important to having realistic expectations from them. Improving people's fluency with them is critical to improving the quality of modeling and the ability of shared models .
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Some balance oust be struck betweer~ telling too Smash and too little. One research approach to developing communication guidelines would come out of value-of-information analysis, asking what information effects the greatest difference ~ the expected value of the specific decisions that need to be made at different nodes (Raiffa, 1968~.
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From page 249... ...
As mentioned carrier, considerable research has exam med people's ability to assess the limits of their own understanding (Wallsten and Budescu, 1983~. Typically, it has shown weak positive correlations between how confident individ~1s are in their own knowledge and how extensive that knowledge is.
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From page 250... ...
of changes in design philosophy, about the state of the science underlying the design, and abort the kind of external peer review to which the design was subjected. Whether such cues contain valid information is an analytical question.
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~t operators do In the essentially novel situations creak by a decision to override is be topic of the following section. RESEARCH NEEDS: MANAGING NON-RCUTINE STIUATIONS Any system m concerned winch irregularities that pose serious threats to life and property must prepare for contingencies.
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From page 252... ...
Inadvertently inculcating undue faith in a basic design that typically functions well Acrid be one kind of interference, as would acting as though contingency plane mg had routinized the treatment of novel situations. Institutional threats might include failing to train for handling non-rout~ne situations or failing to each At
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From page 253... ...
give one the best chance of being able to recover if they do not seem to be working, what manipulations provide the most diagnostic information about their failings, what are the best sources of information about current system status. Such statistical information might prove a useful complement to causal information about the system's intended operation.
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From page 254... ...
to represent lar-fidelil;y simulations of the actual N~;A errvirorments. Similarly, NASA card contribute to concurrent remark prompted by other Systems that place similar intellectual derricks on designers and c~ators.
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From page 255... ...
A task analysis of where such skills arise can increase sensitivity to them, grant legitimacy to Operators' complaints r~ardi~ problems that they are experiencing, and encourage a folklore of design principles that might sense as the basis for subsequent research. m e decision-ma-ding perspective described here is strongly cognitive, An part, because the decision theory from which it is drawn offers a widely applicable perspective and a well-def~ned set of concepts.
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From page 256... ...
decision making bears more discussion In is possible here, see National Research Council, 1986 for ac'H;tional information. In this particular case, there see to be such gerleralit,7, Airless experience praises the sort of f~ck needed to acquire probability assessment as a learned skill.
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Operations Research 28:28-43. 1987 Judgmental aspects of risk analysis.
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Risk Analysis 5:195-207. Hershey, J
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J 1981 Reliability and Risk Analysis.
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C.: National Pow Council. NASA Briefing 1986 Briefing Material, Johnson Space Center.
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G 1975 Quantitative interpretation of two qualitative scales used to rate military intelligence.
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From page 262... ...
262 Wise, B
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