{"id":47900,"date":"2024-01-16T11:48:25","date_gmt":"2024-01-16T11:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/?p=47900"},"modified":"2024-04-19T09:49:06","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T09:49:06","slug":"human-errors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/human-errors\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Errors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What factors cause us to make mistakes, and how can we fix this?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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A canopy collision is always caused by human error, by one or both pilots<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This is the second in a series of articles in the field of human factors, threats and error management, written by Phong Son Ho, a very well-informed skydiver and pilot.<\/span><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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We saw in Son’s previous article<\/a> how Situational Awareness is built, and how thanks to it we can decide and act. In this article, we will see the cognitive strategies that we put in place to be able to act in a dynamic environment\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attention<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To complete a task, we must pay attention to what we are doing. We can think of attention as a \u2018reservoir\u2019; it is limited and we must use it carefully. We call this reservoir the \u2018attentional resources\u2019. To perceive, understand, decide, and act we use part of these resources. When we are in our \u2018comfort zone\u2019 we have available resources and we do not use our full capabilities. However, if the workload increases, we may \ufb01nd ourselves running out of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s take a concrete example: driving a car is for many of us an automatic task and does not demand all of our resources. Writing a text message is also an obvious task that we accomplish without dif\ufb01culty. But driving in a complex environment while texting puts us on the verge of overload. If we are now asked to hold a conversation at the same time, we will not be able to do everything and we will have to drop one of the tasks to do the others, due to lack of availability of attentional resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, one of the problems of human functioning is that the task that we are going to abandon to the detriment of others is not within our control; we do not choose it and we suffer a brain load shed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s the whole trap of our brain! When we are overworked, we can:<\/p>\n\n\n\n