ABSTRACT
Intensive care nurses behave analogously to users of other complex systems in their interactions with the patient-monitor system. Based on Moray’s (1992) assertion that transitions of sampling between elements of a system reveal the underlying cognitive representation of that system, nurses’ mental models of the patient-monitor system were elicited. Nurses with different levels of expertise assessed a series of cases presented on computer. Their behaviour in sampling the cases was measured using a withholding technique in which all system data were kept hidden unless selected by means of a mouse movement. Pattern differences between nurses with different amounts of experience revealed that expert nurses’ causal understanding allowed them to consider many more links between elements than inexperienced nurses. In addition, by making explicit the patterns of behaviour underlying expertise, the withholding technique provided a valuable aid to training.
