Nuclear Reactor Control Room Simulators: Human Factors Research and Development

Abstract: Simulator studies are powerful means for understanding, designing and managing the complexity of nuclear reactor control if, along with their scenarios, they are correctly designed for that purpose. This contribution to an international state of the art of the use of nuclear reactor control room simulators in human factors research and development summarises the trends and novelties in the theories and methodologies (the reduction of the ambitions of cognitive simulation and the renewal of process-tracing methods, the eclectic search for theoretical and methodological complementarity, the conquests of situation awareness and their limitations, the study of cooperation), in the use of the results (with stress on probabilistic human reliability analysis and design of procedures) and in the construction of simulated situations (with stress on part task simulations and on relations between testing practical and empirical hypotheses and testing theoretical ones).

[1]  Jonathan A. Smith,et al.  Rethinking Methods in Psychology , 1995 .

[2]  G. Klein,et al.  Decision Making in Action: Models and Methods , 1993 .

[3]  Jan Holmberg,et al.  Marked point process framework for living probabilistic safety assessment and risk follow-up , 1995 .

[4]  Lev Vygotsky.  Mind in society , 1978 .

[5]  F. Varela.  Principles of biological autonomy , 1979 .

[6]  David Woods,et al.  Situation Awareness: A Critical But Ill-Defined Phenomenon , 1991 .

[7]  D. D. Woods,et al.  The Cognitive Environment Simulation as a tool for modeling human performance and reliability , 1990 .

[8]  Mica R. Endsley,et al.  Experimental Analysis and Measurement of Situation Awareness , 1995 .

[9]  Hiroshi Ujita,et al.  An approach for evaluating expert performance in emergency situations , 1995 .

[10]  Pascal Salazar-Ferrer.  Raisonnement causal et modélisation de l'activité cognitive d'opérateurs de chaufferie nucléaire navale , 1995 .

[11]  Allen Newell,et al.  Human Problem Solving. , 1973 .

[12]  John M. Flach.  Maintaining Situation Awareness when Stalking Cognition in the Wild , 1995 .

[13]  E. M. Roth,et al.  Cognitive skill training for nuclear power plant operational decision making , 1994 .

[14]  T. L. Baker,et al.  Alertness, performance and off-duty sleep on 8-hour and 12-hour night shifts in a simulated continuous operations control room setting , 1995 .

[15]  E. Hutchins.  Cognition in the wild , 1995 .

[16]  K. Haugset,et al.  Interim results of the study of control room crew staffing for advanced passive reactor plants , 1996 .

[17]  E R Jones,et al.  Human Factors Aspects of Simulation: Report of the Working Group on Simulation , 1985 .

[18]  Hiroshi Ujita,et al.  Nuclear Power Plant Operator Performance Analysis Using Training Simulators , 1994 .

[19]  Peter N. Stearns,et al.  Discursive psychology in practice , 1995 .

[20]  Geneviève Filippi,et al.  ANACONDAS: Data Analysis to Assess Work Activity in Simulated Control Rooms. Setting up an Observatory of Nuclear Power Plant Operation at EDF , 1998 .

[21]  Emilie M. Roth,et al.  An empirical investigation of operator performance in cognitively demanding simulated emergencies , 1994 .

[22]  G. Cowan,et al.  Complexity Metaphors, Models, and Reality , 1994 .

[23]  K. Mosier,et al.  Human Decision Makers and Automated Decision Aids: Made for Each Other? , 1996 .

[24]  Erik Hollnagel,et al.  Cognitive reliability and error analysis method : CREAM , 1998 .

[25]  Mica R. Endsley,et al.  Theoretical Underpinnings of Situation Awareness, A Critical Review , 2000 .