Little research has been done on error diagnosis and recovery, especially in the context of event-driven tasks and domains. This study examines operator strategies for diagnosing and recovering from errors and disturbances as well as the impact of automation design and time pressure on these processes. With a confederate pilot, 12 airline pilots flew a 1-hr simulator scenario that involved three challenging automation-related tasks and events that were likely to produce erroneous actions or assessments. Behavioral data were compared with a canonical path to examine pilots' error and disturbance management strategies. Debriefings were conducted to probe pilots' system knowledge. Results showed that pilots seldom followed the canonical path to cope with the scenario events. Detection of a disturbance was often delayed. Diagnostic episodes were rare because of pilots' knowledge gaps and time criticality. Generic inefficient recovery strategies were observed in many cases, and pilots relied on high levels of automation to manage the consequences of an error. These findings highlight the need for improved automation training and design to achieve more timely detection and effective recovery from errors and disturbances.
Abstract