Whirling ladies hide the change
MAC is of the opinion that an hour spent learning about cognitive psychology might helpfully disabuse ships’ officers of a fond belief in the reliability of the unassisted Mark One Eyeball with the optional version one Brain accessory. What You See IS What You Get, WYSIWYG, doesn’t necessarily apply in the real world, as experiments in ‘change blindness’ clearly show.
Our favourite boffin book, New Scientist, has published an example of change blindness, in which significant changes are not observed in a dynamic environment, in this case rotating images.
Illusions and false perceptions certainly have played a role in maritime accidents. The Hockey Stick phenomenon evident in a number of collisions during crossing situations
We need to question not only our assumptions but the physical perceptions that influence our decision making. Continue reading »
Human Element is a term often bandied about in safety circles, sometimes wrongly as a synonym for human error. Less bandied is cognitive psychology, the study of how we perceive, or do not perceive, the world around us. What it often shows is that our intuitions are dangerously flawed and the need to mitigate those hazards.