Behind Human Error, 2nd Edition

2BASIC PREMISES

Designing human error out of systems was one of the earliest activities of human factors (e.g., Fitts and Jones, 1947). Error counts have been used as a measure of performance in laboratory studies since the beginning of experimental psychology. In fact an episode involving a “human error” was the stimulus for one of the earliest developments in experimental psychology. While error has a long history in human factors and experimental psychology, the decade of the 1980s marked the beginning of an especially energetic period for researchers exploring issues surrounding the label “human error.” This international and cross-disciplinary debate on the nature of erroneous actions and assessments has led to a new paradigm about what ...