Cultural issues of nuclear power plant collective control in accidental situations and their impact upon design issues

Using modelling of emergency operation of a nuclear power plant involving hard-copy instructions distributed among different operators, the research described here tackles different cultural cognitive issues and their impact upon design issues. The modelling concerns both the dynamics of attention windows and the dynamics of openings. The paper emphasizes the second aspect, i.e. the diachronic and synchronic relationships within and between the courses of action of the different operators. It shows that these cultural issues go far beyond the safetyculture issues which are usually considered.