skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Representing cognitive activities and errors in HRA trees

Conference · · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States)
OSTI ID:7056258
 [1]
  1. Idaho National Engineering Lab., Idaho Falls (United States)

This paper discusses development of a means by which to present cognitive information in human reliability assessment (HRA) event trees. The descriptions found in probabilistic risk assessments (PRAs) regarding the demands on, and the resulting performance of, nuclear power plant (NPP) crews often make use of the technique for human error rate prediction (THERP), which provides a mechanism, the HRA event tree, for presenting the analyst's conceptualization of the activities underlying performance and the errors associated with that performance. When using THERP, analysts have often omitted the more complex elements of human cognition from these trees. There has yet to be a concerted effort to take theory, principles, and data from cognitive psychology and wed it to the logic structure of the HRA event tree. This paper attempts to do so. The COGENT modeling scheme (cognitively based HRA event trees) adds two taxonomies to the HRA event tree proposed by Swain and Guttman. The first taxonomy, the one proposed by Norman and Reason, describes the type of error committed and implies something about the underlying cognition as well. The second of these, the Rasmussen taxonomy, provides description regarding the skill-based, rule-based, or knowledge-based behavior underlying the execution of tasks. It is not apparent and must be deduced from the pattern of errors exhibited by personnel.

OSTI ID:
7056258
Report Number(s):
CONF-920606-; CODEN: TANSA
Journal Information:
Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States), Vol. 65; Conference: American Nuclear Society annual meeting, Boston, MA (United States), 7-12 Jun 1992; ISSN 0003-018X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English