ABSTRACT
In the year after the Three Mile Island accident, a team of what we would today
call cognitive system engineers was observing how nuclear power control room
operators handle simulated faults in a full scope training simulator (Figure 4). Over
several simulated cases the observers noticed that one of the operators would move
to the reactor display/control area, but they couldn’t tell how he knew to check out
information about these systems. The observers asked the operators about what
triggered them to monitor these displays but the operators made only vague general
comments, intensifying the mystery.
