psychology of spads

The psychology of SPADS:

Solutions beyond technology

2011 AUSRAIL Conference

Dr Rod Gutierrez Principal Psychologist

DuPont Sustainable Solutions

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Copyright © 2010 E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. All rights reserved.

Agenda

To provide an understanding of human error factors and their

application to SPADs through discussion of:

Consciousness

Attention

The Reticular Activating System

The role of habituation

Implications for the management of SPADs

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Factors that contribute to SPADs

Low situational awareness

Divided attention, attentional blindness, change blindness

Sudden distractions

Fatigue

Stress

Boredom and monotony

All impact on our level of consciousness and ability to focus.

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Consciousness

Encompasses perception of sensation, voluntary initiation and control

of movement, and capabilities associated with higher mental

processing

• Involves simultaneous activity of large areas of the cerebral cortex

• Is superimposed on other types of neural activity

• Is holistic and totally interconnected

• Clinical consciousness is defined on a continuum that grades levels of behaviour –

alertness, drowsiness, stupor, coma

Consciousness

Arousal

Drowsiness

Attention

Internal world External world

Information flow

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What Happens When Our Level of Consciousness Decreases?

As we progress from full awareness down to less conscious states we

start to lose the mental ability to stay focused. When biological needs

such as sleep or energy are not met the cognitive mechanisms that

regulate our performance begin to fail.

• Lowered levels of Vigilance - failure to identify relevant stimuli.

• Slowed reaction time - failure to respond to situations quick enough to avoid

adverse effects.

• Impaired decision making - inappropriate actions or inaccurate calculations.

• Memory problems - forgetfulness in communicating information.

• Narrowing attention - failure to fully appraise situations or to recognize the risk of

situations and increased perseverance with inappropriate responses.

• Lapsing or Micro-sleeps - Delayed or no response to relevant stimuli.

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Neural networks and attention

Control over focus is so important that the brain has a whole neural

network devoted to it. The Reticular Activating System (RAS).

• Complex pattern of neurons forming a connection between sensory modalities

(vision, hearing, touch etc.) and arousal, emotional motivational and thinking centres

of the brain.

• Controls habituation system

• Controls arousal (sleep/awake cycle)

• Filters information according to 3 main questions:

• Is it novel?

• Is it important to me?

• Does it fit a pattern I’m familiar with?

Colour exercise

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Habituation

Decrease in psychological and or behavioural response after iterative

exposure to stimulus.

Fundamental adaptive mechanism to assist the brain deal with large

amounts of “irrelevant” information.

We take in 11 million bits of information per second, but the brain can

only process 40-60 bits per second.

• Noise

• Light

• Clothes

• Safety signs!

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Is acting safely a conscious decision?

Attentional System

Stimulus Response

Cognitive

Behavioural

Reaction

Exte

rna

l En

viro

nm

en

t

Neural

Processing

Safe

Actio

ns

RIS

K!

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Perception of our surroundings: the brain is a finite resource

Concentration

Awareness

Attention

Mental Effort

The funnel effect

Bre

ad

th o

f Fo

cu

s

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The other side of the coin… Processing information

Appraisal ActionDecision

Action

Action

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Homeostasis: maintaining internal balance

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Management

Building systems that accommodate the limitations of humans rather

than aim for humans to live up to the requirement of these systems

Attention allocation integral part of training and capability framework

Awareness of RAS and training on its activation

Vigilance Management systems E.g. The driver vigilance telemetric

control system (DVTCS)

Virtual training for emergencies

Selection and recruitment (resistance to monotony, attention capacity,

memory retention)

Systemic support

Stress and Fatigue management

Making Safety important

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Contact Details:

E: [email protected]

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