Differential Effects of Likelihood Alarm Technology and False-Alarm vs. Miss Prone Automation on Decision Making

Clark, Rylan M.; Peyton, Gordon G.; Bustamante, Ernesto A.

doi:10.1177/154193120905300439

“…Similar to past research (Bustamante, 2008;Clark & Bustamante, 2008;Clark, et al, 2010), the findings in this study provide further support for the benefit of three-state alarms within false alarm prone systems. Findings also showed the benefit of three-state alarms in providing additional diagnostic information to assist operators in diagnosing faults that may have misleading indicators.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 78%

Fault diagnosis with multi-state alarms in a nuclear power control simulator

Ragsdale¹,

Lew²,

Dyre³

et al. 2012

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This research addresses how alarm systems can increase operator performance within nuclear power plant operations. The experiment examined the effect of two types of alarm systems (two-state and three-state alarms) on alarm compliance and diagnosis for two types of faults differing in complexity. We hypothesized three-state alarms would improve performance in alarm recognition and fault diagnoses over that of two-state alarms. We used sensitivity and criterion based on Signal Detection Theory to measure performance. We further hypothesized that operator trust would be highest when using three-state alarms. The findings from this research showed participants performed better and had more trust in three-state alarms compared to two-state alarms. Furthermore, these findings have significant theoretical implications and practical applications as they apply to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of nuclear power plant operations.

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“…The MSB and SGTR faults were used in this study as illustrative purposes and do not represent the actual frequency that nuclear power plant operators encounter them, which is extremely rare. This task's design is consistent with prior research (Clark, Ingebritsen, & Bustamante, 2010). Participants first monitored alarm advisories for the masking fault, wherein participants decided to ignore or acknowledge the advisory (see Figure 2).…”

Section: Alarm Monitoring Taskmentioning

confidence: 51%

Fault Diagnosis with Multi-State Alarms in a Nuclear Power Control Simulator

Ragsdale

¹

,

Lew²,

Dyre

³

et al. 2012

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual

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This research addresses how alarm systems can increase operator performance within nuclear power plant operations. The experiment examined the effect of two types of alarm systems (two-state and three-state alarms) on alarm compliance and diagnosis for two types of faults differing in complexity. We hypothesized three-state alarms would improve performance in alarm recognition and fault diagnoses over that of two-state alarms. We used sensitivity and criterion based on Signal Detection Theory to measure performance. We further hypothesized that operator trust would be highest when using three-state alarms. The findings from this research showed participants performed better and had more trust in three-state alarms compared to two-state alarms. Furthermore, these findings have significant theoretical implications and practical applications as they apply to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of nuclear power plant operations.

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“…In contrast to BASs, LASs have more than one threshold for emitting various alerts, which then differ in their PPV and therefore inform the operator about the relative likelihood of an underlying critical event. Compared to control conditions with classical BASs, LASs were found to improve decision-making and performance in terms of accuracy (e.g., Clark, Peyton, & Bustamante, 2009;Ragsdale, Dyre, & Boring, 2012;, particularly under high-workload conditions and for low base rates (Bustamante 2005(Bustamante , 2008Clark & Bustamante, 2008). Moreover, it has been shown that LASs are especially useful to improve proper responding to alerts in case that the validity of an alert cannot be easily verified towards other available information .…”

Section: Likelihood Alarm Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The common procedure of designing a LAS is keeping the initial low threshold of a typical liberal BAS, which separates non-alerts from alerts, but grading the alert level further by adding (at least) one additional threshold (Bustamante 2005(Bustamante , 2008Clark & Bustamante 2008;Clark et al, 2009;Clark, Ingebritsen, & Bustamante, 2010;Ragsdale et al, 2012;Vargas & Bustamante 2011;Wiczorek, 2017;, Wiczorek, Manzey, & Zirk, 2014. Most common are LASs with two thresholds which consist of three stages (3-LAS) as depicted in Figure 1.…”

Section: Likelihood Alarm Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do We Really Need More Stages? Comparing the Effects of Likelihood Alarm Systems and Binary Alarm Systems

Zirk

¹

,

Wiczorek

²

,

Manzey

³

2019

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Objective This research investigates the potential behavioral and performance benefits of a four-stage likelihood alarm system (4-LAS) contrasting a 3-LAS, a binary alarm system with a liberal threshold (lib-BAS), and a BAS with a conservative threshold (con-BAS). Background Prior research has shown performance benefits of 3-LASs over conventional lib-BASs due to more distinct response strategies and better discriminating true from false alerts. This effect might be further enhanced using 4-LASs. However, the increase in stages could cause users to reduce cognitive complexity by responding in the same way to the two lower and the two higher stages, thus treating the 4-LAS like a con-BAS. Method All systems were compared using a dual-task paradigm. Response strategies, number of joint human machine (JHM) false alarms (FAs), misses, and sensitivity were regarded. Results Compared with the lib-BAS, JHM sensitivity only improved with the 4-LAS and the con-BAS. However, the number of JHM misses was lowest for the con-BAS compared with all other systems. Conclusion JHM sensitivity improvements can be achieved by using a 4-LAS, as well as a con-BAS. However, only the latter one may also reduce the number of JHM misses, which is remarkable considering that BASs with conservative thresholds a priori commit more inbuilt misses than other systems. Application Results suggest implementing conservative BASs in multi-task working environments to improve JHM sensitivity and reduce the number of JHM misses. When refraining from designing systems which are miss prone, 4-LASs represent a suitable compromise.

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Differential Effects of Likelihood Alarm Technology and False-Alarm vs. Miss Prone Automation on Decision Making

Cited by 11 publications

References 21 publications

Fault diagnosis with multi-state alarms in a nuclear power control simulator

Fault diagnosis with multi-state alarms in a nuclear power control simulator

Fault Diagnosis with Multi-State Alarms in a Nuclear Power Control Simulator

Do We Really Need More Stages? Comparing the Effects of Likelihood Alarm Systems and Binary Alarm Systems

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