Abstract
One of the reasons often given for employing humans in systems is their supposed abilities to react appropriately and flexibly in failure situations (Johnson, Rouse, and Rouse, 1980). On the other hand, we seem to hear increasingly about incidents of “human error”. The apparent inconsistency of these two observations can cause one to wonder what role the human should actually play. This question has led us to pursue a series of investigations of human problem solving performance in fault diagnosis tasks. Using three different fault diagnosis scenarios, we have studied several hundred subjects, mostly maintenance trainees, who have solved many thousands of problems. The results of these studies have led to the development of three mathematical models of problem solving behavior. The three tasks, results of the eight experiments, and the three models will be reviewed in this paper.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Hunt, R.M., “A Study of Transfer of Training from Context-Free to Context-Specific Fault Diagnosis Tasks”, MSIE Thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1979.
Hunt, R.M., and Rouse, W.B., “Problem Solving Skills of Maintenance Trainees in Diagnosing Faults in Simulated Power-plants”, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, July 1980.
Johnson, W.B., “Computer Simulations in Fault Diagnosis Training: An Empirical Study of Learning Transfer from Simulation to Live System Performance”, PhD Thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1980.
Johnson, W.B., Rouse, S.H., and Rouse, W.B., An Annotated Selected Bibliography on Human Performance in Fault Diagnosis Tasks, Alexandria, VA: U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, Report No. TR 435, 1980.
Johnson, W.B., and Rouse, W.B., “Computer Simulations for Fault Diagnosis Training: From Simulation to Live System Performance”, Proceedings of the 24th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors Society, Los Angeles, October 1980.
Pellegrino, S.J., “Modeling Test Sequences Chosen by Humans in Fault Diagnosis Tasks”, MSIE Thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1979.
Rasmussen, J., “Models of Mental Strategies in Process Plant Diagnosis”, this volume.
Rouse, W.B., “Human Problem Solving Performance in a Fault Diagnosis Task”, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, SMC-8, No. 4, pp. 258–271, April 1978. (a)
Rouse, W.B., “A Model of Human Decision Making in a Fault Diagnosis Task”, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, SMC-8, No. 5, pp. 357–361, May 1978. (b)
Rouse, W.B., “Problem Solving Performance of Maintenance Trainees in a Fault Diagnosis Task”, Human Factors, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 195–203, April 1979. (a)
Rouse, W.B., “A Model of Human Decision Making in Fault Diagnosis Tasks that Include Feedback and Redundancy”, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Vol. SMC-9, No. 4, pp. 237–241, April 1979. (b)
Rouse, W.B., “Problem Solving Performance of First Semester Maintenance Trainees in Two Fault Diagnosis Tasks”, Human Factors, Vol. 21, No. 5, pp. 611–618, October 1979. (c)
Rouse, W.B., Systems Engineering Models of Human-Machine Interaction, New York: North-Holland, 1980.
Rouse, W.B., and Rouse, S.H., “Measures of Complexity of Fault Diagnosis Tasks”, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Vol. SMC-9, No. 11, pp. 720–727, November 1979.
Rouse, W.B., Rouse, S.H.., and Pellegrino, S.J., “A Rule-Based Model of Human Problem Solving Performance in Fault Diagnosis Tasks”, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Vol. SMC-10, No. 7, July 1980.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1981 Plenum Press, New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rouse, W.B. (1981). Experimental Studies and Mathematical Models of Human Problem Solving Performance in Fault Diagnosis Tasks. In: Rasmussen, J., Rouse, W.B. (eds) Human Detection and Diagnosis of System Failures. NATO Conference Series, vol 15. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9230-3_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9230-3_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4615-9232-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-9230-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive