Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Empirical estimation of human error probabilities based on the complexity of proceduralized tasks in an analog environment

  • Park, Jinkyun (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI)) ;
  • Kim, Hee Eun (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI)) ;
  • Jang, Inseok (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI))
  • Received : 2021.07.21
  • Accepted : 2021.12.20
  • Published : 2022.06.25
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Abstract

The contribution of degraded human performance (e.g., human errors) is significant for the safety of diverse social-technical systems. Therefore, it is crucial to understand when and why the performance of human operators could be degraded. In this study, the occurrence probability of human errors was empirically estimated based on the complexity of proceduralized tasks. To this end, Logistic regression analysis was conducted to correlate TACOM (Task Complexity) scores with human errors collected from the full-scope training simulator of nuclear power plants equipped with analog devices (analog environment). As a result, it was observed that the occurrence probability of both errors of commission and errors of omission can be soundly estimated by TACOM scores. Since the effect of diverse performance influencing factors on the occurrence probabilities of human errors could be soundly distinguished by TACOM scores, it is also expected that TACOM scores can be used as a tool to explain when and why the performance of human operators starts to be degraded.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by a grant from the Nuclear Research & Development Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea, funded by the Korean government, Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (grant number 2019M2C9A1055906), and by a Nuclear Safety Research Program grant from the Korea Foundation of Nuclear Safety (KOFONS), funded by the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission of the Republic of Korea (No. 2105029).

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