ABSTRACT
Many real-world decisions are of a dynamic nature, such as fighting a fire, preventing the propagation of a fault in a production process or treating a patient. The system to be controlled changes over time and in addition to knowing what to do, the decision maker also has to decide when to apply actions, taking the system evolution into account (Brehmer, 1992). Time is therefore a central factor in dynamic decision making. In static task environments time pressure has mainly been manipulated by posing a deadline on the participants (for a recent overview· see Svenson & Maule, 1993; Maule, this volume). In dynamic environments, on the other hand, time pressure results from the inherent time dimension in the environment itself, and the speed at which undesirable consequences approach can be taken as an indication for the time pressure, such as when the patient's health or system performance is rapidly declining.
