# Presentation: 033994

## Automation and Expertise

- Presented at the WDM III Workshop

- Liz Quoetone
- Warning Decision Training Branch

- What is expertise
- and
- How can automation work against it?

- WDM III Workshops

## Sources

- Information technology and expertise -  Klein, HPSSA
- USS Vincennes disaster - decision making and stress (TADMUS)
- Report on Shady Grove Metro incident, NTSB
- How people make decisions in real environments, Klein
- Interfaces between flightcrews and modern flight deck systems, FAA
- Study of AWS forecasters, Pliske, SRL Brooks AFB

- WDM III Workshops

## Expertise is critical when automation fails

- “Yes, Auto-Pilot is on, all systems reading normal, ...I think we’re good to go.”

- Expertise is _*critical*_ when automation fails

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## Study of Expertise with AFW Forecasters

- Experience:13.5 Years

- Experience:4.3 Years

**Accuracy**
**(%)**

**Year**

**From Pliske et al 1997**

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## Question asked by USAF :Why has a significant investment in advanced technology yet to produce improvements in forecast accuracy?

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## Answer by Klein:Expertise in AFWis gone.His observation: Expertise in the NWS is following the same path.

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## What is an Expert?

- Expert
- Connects the past to the present and can can usually project options for the future.
- More easily adjusts when any one option turns bad
- Novice
- Lives in the moment. Can’t recognize complex relationships. Produces limited options.
- Imposter
- Has mastered procedures and tricks, but
- Lacks a sense of dynamics
- Can’t improvise when assumptions fail

- WDM III Workshops

## What is an Expert?

- Routine Expert
- Great at everyday stuff, strong procedural knowledge
- Runs into trouble when problems are ill-structured or novel
- Adaptive Expert
- Has a deep comprehension of conceptual structure of the problem domain

- WDM III Workshops

## Why is expertise so valuable?

- Some disciplines require 10 years to build up expertise
- Time alone is not enough to guarantee it
- Person with expertise can be very difficult to replace
- Many companies protect equipment...overlook the value of an employee with expertise
- Money can replace the former, only time (maybe) can replace the latter

- WDM III Workshops

## Experts under pressure

**“****Decision Quality”**

**Good**

**6 seconds**

**3.0**

**2.8**

**2.6**

**3.2**

**“****Time allowed for Decision”**

**2.25 min**

**Experts**

**Novices**

**Poor**

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## What do experts do so well that others don’t?

- Recognize patterns
- Detect anomalies
- Keep the big picture (SA)
- Understand the way things work
- Observe opportunities, able to improvise
- Relate past, present, and future events
- Pick up on very subtle differences
- Address their own limitations

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## Experts recognize patternsThe ability to see patterns gives us SA

- Fireground commanders
- Look at burning building and can infer what’s happening inside. *They relate cause and effect*

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## Experts relate cause and effect

- “Yep it’s the darnedest thing. Whenever that bell sounds, it means somebody’s fixin’ to knock on the door.”

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## 2) Experts detect anomalies

- Including:
- Erroneous events
- and
- Missing events

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## 3) Experts keep the big picture

*Situation Awareness*

**Novices are often confused by all the data elements**

**Have an overall sense of what’s happening**
**Relevant cues are monitored**
**Plausible goals pursued**
**Actions are weighed**

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## 4) Experts understand the way things work

- Can see inside events and objects
- Know how tasks are suppose to be done
- Also know when to do them differently
- Know how teams coordinate
- Know strengths and limitations of equipment

**Electronic Warfare Technician: “This console is a liar. But it’s OK since I know how to work around it”**

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## 5) Experts observe opportunities, able to improvise

- Have learned not to rely too heavily on data
- Can generate explanations and predictions which are inconsistent with data

**K... 162340Z 170024 01006KT P6SM OVC025 **
**          ****TEMPO 0004 OVC018**
**        ****FM0400 01006KT P6SM OVC017 **
**         ****TEMPO 0912 5SM -SN **
**       ****FM1700 01005KT P6SM SCT017 BKN110**

**    ****“****What would cause these times to be off or these ceilings to be higher or lower?”**

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## 6) Experts relate past, present and future events

- Connect all events
- Understand primary causes and can apply them to run mental simulations
- Generate expectations
- They don’t get caught “flying behind the plane”
- Can view from the other’s eyes

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## 6) Use of Past and Future cont...The Cuban Missile Crises and May 3rd Tornado Outbreak

**Found an alternate explanation for the “2****nd****” response from Russia**
** ****Result: Global Nuclear War avoided**
**Found an alternate explanation for the phones not ringing**
** ****Result: Warning allowed to continue**

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## 7) Experts pick up on very subtle differences

- Detect nuances that novices can’t even force themselves to see
- i.e.,  they get it
- novice’s don’t because “it” is NOT a fact or insight but rather the sum of varied experiences

**A 1925 Bordeaux from the Entre-Deux-Mers vineyard, with a slightly pungent bouquet; the crop was stressed for 2 weeks before harvest.**

- Yes I agree. It’s wine.

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## 8) Experts manage their own limitations

- See inward – thinking about thinking
- Have good SA and can tell when losing it
- Perform self critique and learn
- Modify strategy when necessary
- Work around memory limitations

***“******Tornado Warning? What on earth was I thinking?!”***

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## Now enter automation

- Now enter automation

- Automation is not bad,  just often misapplied
- Automation can work to keep the expert from using his/her expertise
- Automation can work to keep the novice from gaining expertise

**   “****Technology is often set up to make it easier for those writing programs, not those interpreting the data.”  *****Klein***

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## The unwanted by-products of automation(or how to make people stupid)

- The unwanted by-products of automation(or how to make people stupid)

- Disabling expertise
- Slowing the rate of learning
- Teaching dysfunctional skills

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## Expertise is disabled when you...

**Data**

- Information

- Knowledge

- Understanding

- A miracle occurs here

- A bigger miracle occurs here

*Data vs understanding*

- Information Overload

**Achieve**

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## Expertise is disabled when you...

**Increase Uncertainty via**
**Missing data**
**Mistrust of data**
**Missing inferences and projections**
**Data inconsistencies**

-       **FXUS66 K... 191110**
**      ****AFD...**
**      ****EXTENDED...LATEST MODELS HAVE CHANGED DRAMATICALLY FROM EARLIER RUNS...ESPECIALLY FOR THE SUN-MON TIME PERIODS. AVN/MRF NOW BRING A CLOSED LOW DOWN THE LENGTH OF CALIFORNIA FROM SUN EVENING THRU MON EVENING...**

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## Expertise is disabled when you...

**Prevent evaluation**

**Can you tell what components were used to define Cells 1 and 2?**

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## Expertise is disabled when you...

**Disengage the decision maker**

**  “****My inexperience led me to attempt to generate a computer solution for a simple manual VOR problem. Attempting to reduce the workload through automation created a more demanding situation, distracting us from the basics of flying.”    ****Pilot entry in Aviation Safety Reporting System**

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## Expertise is disabled when you...

**Turn the decision maker into a clerk**

**“****I’ve learned that the more gizmos installed (FMC,TCAS,ACARS,etc), the less time you have to devote to the primary job of flying the aircraft.” **
**Pilot entry in ASRS**

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## Expertise is disabled when you...

**Reduce confidence**
**What happens next time?**

**“****FMC  can give you a false sense of security because it’s **_***always***_** accurate. This time it was off 3-5 miles...”  ****(Pilot ASRS)**

**“...****who was I to say numerical guidance is wrong?”**
**(forecaster after East Coast snowstorm)**

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## The rate of learning is slowed when....

- Rapid feedback is provided
- Without a means to assess why decision is right or wrong
- Don’t get a chance to develop own solutions

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## The rate of learning is slowed when....

- Data are so preprocessed
- Can’t tell what’s fixed, if anything, and what’s real

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## The rate of learning is slowed when....

- An Auto-Pilot mentality is encouraged
- Don’t involve human until there’s a problem
- Unfortunately, at that point the human doesn’t know:
- What led to the problem
- How to reverse it
- Rust factor – never use or practice skills, until the need for such skills is critical

- WDM III Workshops

## Shady Grove Metro StopJanuary 5th, 1996

**Shady Grove Metro Stop****January 5****th****, 1996**

**“****AT NO TIME WILL TRAINS BE PERMITTED TO OPERATE IN A MANUAL MODE...except in an emergency situation.”****  ****WMATA Notice to all OCC Personnel**

**This train should be here.**

**This train should not.**

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## Dysfunctional skills are taught by...

- Misuse of attention management
- Focused on method instead of mission

**“****My first priority was data entry rather than situation awareness.” ****ASRS**

**“****Concentration on automation rather than just flying the aircraft was enough distraction to fly through the altitude.” ****ASRS**

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## Dysfunctional skills are taught by...

- Using simplistic metrics to measure value
- Radar gun measures
- Speed
- Radar gun doesn’t measure
- Control
- Pitch selection
- Pitch variety
- Stamina

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## Dysfunctional skills are taught by...

- Procedural mentality
- Loss of intuition

**“****So 82/50 =2??”**

**“****Well that’s what my calculator says...”**

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## Dysfunctional skills are taught by...

- Inefficient strategies
- Inability to relate automation in a context

**“****The GPS says we’re at 44/07/29 N and 102/49/46 W (wherever that is).”**

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## How to Retain/Develop Expertise

-    A better option can be to rethink how we use automation, and do it in a way that supports expertise, not tries to replace it

-    Unfortunately the easiest (and often chosen)solution is to interject more automation

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## How to create a “culture of expertise”

- Identify sources of expertise
- Do you think who’s working? Who wrote that?
- Focus on expertise, not just experts
- Assay the knowledge
- See what expertise is there- design drills around this
- See what expertise is not – find resources
- Extract the knowledge
- Use of “stories”  or “accounts” to elicit this
- Codify the knowledge
- Refine it for your particular needs, locate decision points
- Apply the knowledge
-  Simulations, OJT, Mentoring, others?

- WDM III Workshops

## How to Retain/Develop Expertise

- Support efforts to develop
- perceptual skills and pattern recognition
- Constructed mental models
- Sense of typicality, ability to spot anomalies
- Routines and workarounds
- Form expectations, and learn why they did or did not pan out

- WDM III Workshops

## How to Retain/Develop Expertise

- DRT
-  25 hours of  _*well done*_ simulations can achieve the same effect as 2 years of experience (or much more)
- Simulate as many of the “real” parts as possible
- Including personnel interactions, time, stress, resource allocations, “bogus” data
- Interject problems
- Critique reasoning, not just outcomes

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## How to Retain/Develop Expertise...cont

- Post Mortems
- Why? Why? Why? and Why not?
- Look at raw data when possible
- Stay as close to the “truth” when possible
- Form opinions with this first then look to automated input

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## Questions?

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## References

- “Can Information Technology Reduce Expertise?”  aka “How to Make People Stupid”  Gary Klein, 2000 Human Performance, Situation Awareness and Automation Conference, Savannah, GA
- _Making Decisions Under Stress: Implications for Individual and Team Training_, Cannon-Bowers, Salas, 1998
- “Railroad Accident Report Collision of Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Train T-111 with Standing Train at Shady Grove Passenger Station, Gaithersburg, Maryland January 6, 1996”, NTSB
- _Sources of Power:  How People Make Decisions, _ Gary Klein, Klein and Associates, 1998
- “The Interfaces Between Flightcrews and Modern Flight Deck Systems”, FAA Human Factors Team Report June 1996
- “Understanding Skilled Weather Forecasting: Implications for Training and the Design of Forecasting Tools”, Pliske et al, Systems Research Lab Brooks AFB,  June 1997

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