ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors introduce new technology because they think it helps people perform better. For example, they expect technology –and especially automation technology–to reduce people’s workload, improve situation awareness, and decrease the opportunity for human error. The authors illustrate how the patterns of human-automation breakdown are of a certain kind–similar from one incident to the next, and from one domain to the next. They explore automation for its impact on human cognition. Automation technology has also created novel and unprecedented opportunities for human error and opened doors to new forms of system breakdown. Operators no longer treat automation as a separate component in the larger operational system. Instead they approach automation as an animate partner in systems operations. One of the myths about automation and human cognition is that as investment in automation increases, less investment is needed in human expertise. Automation technology has a profound influence on human cognition and human work.
