Quelques mythes de la sécurité industrielle

National audienceLorsque l'on étudie la sécurité industrielle et que l'on travaille en étroite collaboration avec l'industrie, on se rend compte que la gestion classique de la sécurité repose en partie sur un ensemble de croyances partagées par un grand nombre d'entreprises. Pour autant, ces croyance sont-elles scientifiquement fondées ? Par exemple, doit-on parler d'erreur humaine ou de conditions défavorables? Les protections augmentent-elles la sécurité ou invitent-elles à prendre plus de risques ? Au travers de ce court article, questionnons-nous sur quelques unes de nos croyances, démontons-les et soumettons quelques uns de nos présupposés à l'analyse scientifique. Voyage au coeur des mythes de la sécurité industrielle ..

Book Review: Imaz, M. and Benyon, D. (2007). Designing with blends. MIT Press, London, England

Cognition, Technology & Work, 11, 241-244 (2009). MINES ParisTech - CRC Technical Report.The book presents a theoretical look at software engineering and human-computer interaction. Through the review of numerous theories ranging from cognitive psychology to linguistics and the philosophy of language, the authors decompose the activity of design. The writing style is clear and the arguments are laid out in simple and comprehensible terms

Overlooking causes in healthcare accident analysis.: Choosing the analysis is choosing the results

This paper demonstrates the influence of one's assumptions and angle of analysis on the causes discovered during an accident investigation. The research investigates a real medical case where a physician diagnosed a dislocated shoulder and a pneumothorax on a patient who was subsequently found to only suffer an undisplaced fracture of the shoulder blade and contused ribs. The physician inserted a tube into the thoracic cavity in order to drain the suspected pneumothorax. In doing so, the patient's liver was punctured twice. Three successive analyses of the case were performed: human-centred, organisation-centred, and joint (cognitive and organisation brought together). By comparing analyses, we tested the type of causes of the accident that can be overlooked, and the type of conclusions that can be drawn, depending on the type of analysis performed. We demonstrate the interest in carrying out a joint analysis: it highlights organisational conditions that influence individual behaviour, and therefore minimises the loss of information when looking for explanations. We address the issue of the early decisions and assumptions made in the investigation process. We claim that these determine one's ability to discover complex causes, and have an impact on the capacity of an organisation to protect itself against re-occurrences. Our research discusses these assumptions and lists recommendations that are relevant to the field of accident investigation in the large. As such, our paper can support the work of safety practitioners in a wide range of industrial sectors

Troubleshooting in Mechanics: A Heuristic Matching Process

International audienceThis paper deals with expert operators' reasoning processes in troubleshooting. We want to know more about the information that experienced operators use. In a previous study we studied electronics troubleshooting. We found that experts used surface cues in order to implement heuristic rules even if the latter are not relevant to the current fault. We now wish to study the field of mechanics. An experiment was conducted in order to test the hypothesis of a heuristic rule-based level of control responsible for errors among experts. This paper adopts a naturalistic and ergonomic point of view about troubleshooting in mechanics. Our results show that expert mechanics operators' errors rely on heuristics in the troubleshooting process. This strategy relies on an automated matching process between symptoms and procedures. Although this strategy is usually powerful, it is rigid and may lead the operator to not locate the fault of the latter is atypica

Computer security impaired by legal users

Computer security has traditionally been assessed from a technical point of view. In this paper, we wish to adopt a cognitive standpoint and investigate some of the cognitive processes involved in computer security. One angle which is not considered very often is the active role played by legal users of systems in impairing the level of protection. In this paper, we thus attempt to highlight the cognitive processes underlying security impairments by legal users. This approach relies on the concept of trade-off. At the end of the paper, we propose a short usability-centered set of recommendations

Some myths about industrial safety

MINES ParisTech - CRC Technical Report.There are many definitions of safety, but most of them are variations on the theme that safety can be measured by the number of adverse outcomes. This vision has consequences for how industry thinks safety can be achieved. This paper looks at six safety-related assumptions, or safety myths, which impact industry practices. We argue that these practices are littered with fragile beliefs, which in many cases make the safety management flawed and ineffectual. The open acknowledgement of these myths is a necessary first step to genuinely improve industrial safety

Interface changes causing accidents. An empirical study of negative transfer

International audienceWhen expert operators interact with a new device, they inevitably reuse former interaction modes and actions. This phenomenon is due to the human cognition seeking resources savings. Schemas support this strategy and are implemented in such a way that perfection is disregarded at the profit of an intuitive trade-off between performance and cognitive resources savings. As a consequence, humans have a strong inclination to fit well-known solution procedures into new problems. For this reason, changes in work environments can cause accidents when they allow operators to interact with a new device if the latter is erroneously perceived as familiar. This research issue originates from an industrial background. The suspected cause of a fatal error performed by an operator in a steelworks factory is replicated in an experiment. The results support the hypothesis according to which errors (and possible subsequent accidents) due to changes in the interface are more likely when the latter does not inhibit former modes of interaction modes. This main result is discussed under the angle of cognitive ergonomics and used as a basis to provide design guidelines

Technical and Human Issues in Computer-Based Systems Security

Computer systems and internet are becoming pervasive in our everyday life. Being online brings the consequence that such systems are prone to malicious attack. This vulnerability, along with our reliance on these systems, implies that it is important for us to do our best in securing them to ensure their proper functioning. In this paper, we are trying to tackle the security issues from both technical and human perspectives. From this dual standpoint, we hope to obtain a better understanding on how computer attacks are performed, including how to gain illicit access, the types of attacks, as well as the potential damage that they can cause. We also uncover sociological and psychological traits of the attackers, including their community, taxonomy, motives and work ethics. This survey paper will not provide a concrete solution on how to secure computer systems, but it highlights the socio-technical approach that we must take in order to obtain that goal

Perception infraliminaire de stimulus familiers et résolution de problèmes simples

Texte disponible en libre accès : http://www.raco.cat/index.php/AnuarioPsicologia/article/view/61128/88867International audienceCette recherche porte sur les effets de la simple exposition infraliminaire de visages connus et de mots sur des tâches de résolution de problèmes simples. En effets, 32 étudiants à l'Université de Provence ont pris part à cette expérience. Ils étaient exposés soit de manière infra soit supraliminaire à des visages connus ou inconnus. Ils devaient, immédiatement après l'exposition aux stimulus, résoudre des problèmes simples. 32 autres étudiants ont été soumis à la même procédure expérimentale, excepté qu'ils étaient exposés non pas à des visages mais soit à des mots soit à des non mots. Les résultats, bien qu'ils ne confirment que partiellement les hypothèses, montrent que les stimulus ont des effets facilitateurs sur la tâche, notamment en infraliminaire. Les sujets ont plus de difficultés à résoudre la tâche lorsque celle-ci est précédée par des visages inconnus ou par des mots que lorsqu'elle est précédée par des visages connus ou des non-mots