Plant operator performance evaluation from the viewpoint of crew communications

Elucidation of a plant operator's cognitive processes is required to improve the man-machine interface that supports operators' diagnoses and decisions. Experiments to clarify operators' cognitive processes have been performed in which operator performance under abnormal conditions was evaluated by protocol analyses and interviews using a plant dynamics simulator. The cognitive processes had been previously analyzed by using the information-processing model developed based on Rasmussen's idea. The authors have had the working hypothesis, based on the experimental observations, that crew communications can be divided into various types, and operator performance can be evaluated by analysis of crew communications. Differences in operator crew performance were evaluated in the present study