Dissonance Engineering: A New Challenge to Analyse Risky Knowledge When using a System

The use of information systems such as on-board automated systems for cars presents sometimes operational risks that were not taken into account with classical risk analysis methods. This paper proposes a new challenge to assess risks by implementing an automated tool based on the dissonance engineering principle. It consists in analysing knowledge in term of dissonances. A dissonance is defined as a knowledge that sounds wrong, or in other words that may present conflicts. The paper focuses on two kinds of dissonances: erroneous affordances when events can be related to erroneous actions and contradictory knowledge when the application of knowledge relates to opposite actions. The proposed automated tool analyses the knowledge base content in order to detect possible dangerous affordances or contradictory knowledge. An example of application is given by using a limited number of simple rules related to the use of an Automated Speed Control (ASC) system for car driving

Non-conscious errors in the control of dynamic events synchronized with heartbeats: A new challenge for human reliability study

This paper studies the synchronization between dynamic events with heartbeats and its impact on non-conscious errors in the control of dynamic events. It proposes a methodology to compare two groups of subjects: a group for which alarms are synchronized with the heartbeats of the subjects and a group for which they are not. Quantitative and subjective data were recorded during four experimental phases from a low level to a high level of workload. Results showed that there was a significant impact of such a synchronization of events with heartbeat: people produced more errors when this synchronization was present and they were not really conscious about the disruption of their abilities. This study is very promising and shows the interest of developing future on-line or off-line human reliability assessment methods based on unsafe behaviors associated with this synchronization