Reference blindness: the influence of references on trust in Wikipedia

In this study we show the influence of references on trust in information. We changed the contents of reference lists of Wikipedia articles in such a way that the new references were no longer in any sense related to the topic of the article. Furthermore, the length of the reference list was varied. College students were asked to evaluate the credibility of these articles. Only 6 out of 23 students noticed the manipulation of the references; 9 out of 23 students noticed the variations in length. These numbers are remarkably low, as 17 students indicated they considered references an important indicator of credibility. The findings suggest a highly heuristic manner of credibility evaluation. Systematic evaluation behavior was also observed in the experiment, but only of participants with low trust in Wikipedia in general

The role of cognitive abilities in laparoscopic simulator training

Learning minimally invasive surgery (MIS) differs substantially from learning open surgery and trainees differ in their ability to learn MIS. Previous studies mainly focused on the role of visuo-spatial ability (VSA) on the learning curve for MIS. In the current study, the relationship between spatial memory, perceptual speed, and general reasoning ability, in addition to VSA, and performance on a MIS simulator is examined. Fifty-three laparoscopic novices were tested for cognitive aptitude. Laparoscopic performance was assessed with the LapSim simulator (Surgical Science Ltd., Gothenburg, Sweden). Participants trained multiple sessions on the simulator until proficiency was reached. Participants showed significant improvement on the time to complete the task and efficiency of movement. Performance was related to different cognitive abilities, depending on the performance measure and type of cognitive ability. No relationship between cognitive aptitude and duration of training or steepness of the learning curve was found. Cognitive aptitude mediates certain aspects of performance during training on a laparoscopic simulator. Based on the current study, we conclude that cognitive aptitude tests cannot be used for resident selection but are potentially useful for developing individualized training programs. More research will be performed to examine how cognitive aptitude testing can be used to design training programs

Measuring workload weak resilience signals at a rail control post

This paper describes an observational study at a rail control post to measure workload weak-resilience-signals (WRS). A weak resilience signal indicates a possible degradation of a system's resilience, which is defined as the ability of a complex socio-technical system to cope with unexpected and unforeseen disruptions. A method, based upon a WRS framework, introduces a new metric, Stretch, to measure the signals. Stretch is a subjective or an objective reaction of the system to an external cluster-event, and is an operationalization of variables in an earlier Stress-Strain model. The Stretch-ratio between the subjective and objective Stretch are used to identify workload WRS. WRSs identified during real-time operation revealed obstacles that influence the resilience state and enabled actions to anticipate and mitigate changes, to maintain the resilience of the system

ADAPTER: Analysing & Developing Adaptability & performance in Teams to enhance resilience

In the current study, the concept of team resilience was operationalized by developing a first version of a questionnaire (ADAPTER) driven by the four essential abilities of resilience (Hollnagel, 2011) and expanded with more relation-oriented abilities of leadership and cooperation. The development and administration of ADAPTER took place within two companies. Factor analyses using data of 91 participants largely supported the hypothesized 6-dimension taxonomy. Support was found for Team responding behavior, Shared Leadership and Cooperation with other teams/ departments. Anticipation showed considerable overlap with the Monitoring scale, possibly due to the fact that monitoring items dealt with prospective situations. Using ADAPTER questionnaire results as a starting point for further in-depth discussion among the different teams in the pilot companies proved very useful. Suggestions for future research include contextualizing the questionnaire by embedding it in actual cases or having it filled in after specific incidents. Also, support of organization should be included as a separate dimension in ADAPTE

Team reflection makes resilience-related knowledge explicit through collaborative sensemaking: observation study at a rail post

Resilience is defined as the ability to adaptively deal with system boundaries in the face of the unexpected and unforeseen (Branlat and Woods in AAAI Fall Sympoisum, 2010. http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/FSS/FSS10/paper/viewPaper/2238). We hypothesize that drawing upon resilience-related knowledge is a prerequisite for such adaptivity. This paper proposes team reflection (Ellis et al. in Curr Dir Psychol Sci 23(1):67–72, 2014) as a macrocognitive function to make the resilience-related knowledge explicit. This knowledge is implicitly available with individual team members active at the sharp end but is never explicitly shared due to invisibility of goal-relevant constraints. To overcome this invisibility, we suggest an application that makes changes in the current rail socio-technical system visible in terms of the three system boundaries, a variation of the originally proposed by Rasmussen (Saf Sci 27(2/3):183–213, 1997): safety, performance and workload. This allows a team of rail signallers to analyse movements towards system boundaries and share knowledge on these movements. An observational study at a rail control post was conducted to assess the value of team reflection in making resilience-related knowledge explicit. For this purpose, we developed a first prototype of the application concerning the performance boundary only. Using naturalistic observations of a team during a week, we observed how they reflected at the end of their shift on salient system changes. A global content analysis was used to show the relevance of the content to resilience and to test the increase in the resilience-related knowledge throughout the observation period. A specific case of a human approaching the rail tracks, as a potential suicide, was analysed in detail. The results show the value of team reflection on system movements towards their boundaries, thus making goal-relevant constrained knowledge explicit within the operational rail environment