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The discipline of Human Factors offers anopportunity for attorneys to tap into a scientific field that is highly pertinent to awide range of judicial matters, especially in workplace injury, product liability,personal injury, and transportation accidents. Human factors professionals (whetherprimarily practitioners, academicians, or researchers) have testified in plaintiff anddefense matters and have successfully withstood Daubert-based motions to exclude theirtestimony.
Though having a variety of historical antecedentsin behavioral and engineering sciences, the field of human factors is generally recognizedto have its major impetus for growth during World War II as a direct result of thedevelopment of increasingly complex equipment and systems requiring a deeper understandingof human characteristics. Data were needed about human capabilities and limitations inorder to increase the likelihood of safe and efficient operations in these systems. Thefield of experimental psychology provided the largest initial resource for that kind ofinformation because of research conducted in areas such as vision, audition, perception,reaction time, information procession, decision-making, and capabilities in taskperformance.
Concurrently, industrial applications weredeveloping in areas of personnel selection, training, motivation, inspection, and qualitycontrol. The term "ergonomics" is used as an adjunct to human factors andessentially is an equivalent term. However, ergonomics has been popularized such that muchof the general population thinks of ergonomics as simply "comfort of officefurniture" or "cumulative trauma disorder".
Today, the general goal of human factorsspecialists is to assure that the things that people use or maintain are designed in amanner to be most compatible with human capabilities and limitations in order to (a)reduce the probability of human error; (b) enhance system performance; (c) assure safetyof anyone associated with the system or equipment. In designing small appliances, medicaldevices, high performance aircraft, transportation systems, manufacturing facilities andprocesses, office environments, or anything else, human factors professionals havedemonstrated significant accomplishments in increasing human safety, comfort andproductivity.
Representative Issues
This brief section is meant to be illustrative,not exhaustive, in order to suggest the kinds of issues human factors forensicspractitioners may address. In any particular accident matter, of course, any of thevarious factors included below may become involved. In a machinery accident: taskoperations and procedures; skill requirements; type of guarding provided; controls anddisplays; training and experience; instructions; warnings; reach and muscle force;lighting and visibility; reaction time. In a product liability matter: anticipated userpopulation; expectancies and experience; controls and displays; color coding; guarding;warnings; manuals; hidden dangers; integration with body characteristics. In a vehicularaccident: visibility and lighting; traffic control devices; perception and reaction time;training and experience; fatigue; age; roadway characteristics; intersection and/orrailroad crossing features. In a personal injury accident: (e.g., a trip and fall) --familiarity; visibility and lighting; placement of barricades; markings; warnings;handholds; railings.
Role of Human Error
Consider two aspects of "human error" -- pervasiveness andinducement. First, human error is involved in virtually any accident event. Most of usthink of user or operator error (as in "pilot error" in an aviation accident)when hearing that term. However, human error can enter into an accident event in manyother ways. During the design process, a design flaw may be introduced; in manufacture,assembly errors can occur; and during inspection, those defects may not be found becauseof human factors. A human factors specialist can provide understanding of the contributorsto such errors at those different stages when they are important to the accident event.More importantly, human error is frequently "design induced". Studies haveclearly shown that human errors are not just self-caused. Indeed, the design of controls,displays, workstation arrangement, guarding, instructional and warning label content, andenvironmental factors such as lighting or noise may elicit the error. Many tragicdesign-induced errors have been well documented. The tendency to dismiss an aviationaccident, an air traffic control radar loss, a single vehicle fatality accident, and thelike on "human error" is appropriately challenged in light of the fact that thedesign itself may promote human errors in the cockpit, in the factory, in a control room,or on a roadway. Here, the human factors specialist can play a pivotal role inunderstanding accident factors and interactions.
Conclusion
Human Factors is an established science and professional discipline.It provides a knowledge base for understanding the interaction of design with humancapabilities and limitations. Those human characteristics are contained in severaldimensions:
- psychological -- e.g., cognitive skills, perception, reaction time, expectancies, information processing, decision making, motivation; stress;
- physiological -- e.g., vision, audition, tactile sensations, fatigue;
- anthropometric -- e.g., body size, reach, muscle strength.
Human factors data and criteria have been appliedto the design of ordinary appliances, farm and construction machinery, transportationvehicles and systems, industrial equipment, office equipment, command and control rooms,and even to spacecraft. The major focus of the field is on the factors involved in"human error" and the implications for product design and system safety. Anestablished database, a wealth of literature, notable journals, professional societies,and certification programs all attest to the validity of the field and its usefulintroduction into the forensics process.
By Dr. Richard J. Hornick - Email: HORNDOC@aol.com
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