Journal of Ergonomics Kim, J Ergonomics 2016, 6:4
http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2165-7556.1000e158
Editorial Open Access
Cognitive Ergonomics and Its Role for Industry Safety Enhancements
In-Ju Kim*
Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, College of Engineering, University of Sharjah, PO Box 27272, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
*Corresponding author: In-Ju Kim, Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, College of Engineering, University of Sharjah, PO Box 27272,
Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, Tel: 0501340498; E-mail:
[email protected]Received date: Jun 30, 2016; Accepted date: July 02, 2016; Published date: July 04, 2016
Copyright: ©2016 Kim IJ et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Introduction for facilitating to further reduce and prevent accidents, injuries, and
illness caused by cognitive interruptions.
Although ergonomic interventions have shown a great success to
improve safety and productivity in the industry [1-4], ergonomists and
safety researchers have faced a new challenge to move one step further.
Cognitive Ergonomics and Industry Safety
The industry’s recent requests from ergonomists and cognitive Enhancements
psychologists are to find solutions for workers who have cognitive
disorders and failures such as reductions in visual and hearing Cognitive ergonomics
functions at least to some extents. A large part of occupational
According to the International Ergonomics Association, cognitive
accidents and injuries is caused by human errors due to cognitive
ergonomics is concerned with mental processes such as perception,
breakdowns. The human errors have different causes, but cognitive
memory, reasoning, and motor response, as they affect interactions
abilities and limitations of workers play an important role [5,6].
amongst humans and other elements of a system [15]. It is the
Cognitive failures are described as cognitively-based errors arising discipline and practices for making human-system interaction
in a simple task that persons or workers can do without any error [7]. compatible with human cognitive abilities and limitations, particularly
These events differ in their natures and rates amongst workers or at work [16]. It aims to ensure appropriate communications amongst
individuals. Cognitive failures occur in job-related and non-job-related human needs, works, products, environments, capabilities, and
activities. Specifically, work-related cognitive failures are cognitively- limitations [15,16].
based human errors and clusters of breakdowns that appear in working
The relevant research topics in cognitive ergonomics include mental
environments [7]. For this reason, it needs to examine relationships
workload, decision-making, skilled performance, human-computer
between occupational cognitive failures and safety consequences.
interaction, human reliability, work stress, and training as these may
The associations between general cognitive failures and workplace relate to human-system design [15,16]. Hence, cognitive ergonomics
accidents have been extensively assessed by researchers. For example, mainly studies cognition in work and operational settings in order to
Arthur et al. showed a positive correlation between cognitive failures optimize human well-being and system performance. It is a subset of
and occupational safety and concluded that workplace accidents were the larger disciplinary fields of ergonomics and human factors.
caused by inattention, distraction, and mental errors [8]. The similar
In the human-system interaction, cognitive ergonomics employ the
outcome was obtained in a study of the traffic domain [9]. Other
knowledge emerging from cognitive sciences on mental processes such
studies also conducted to find the connotation between cognitive
as perception, attention, memory, decision-making, and learning [16].
failures and minor injuries and found a positive correlation between
The methods of these research areas are applied to gain a better
cognitive failures and fall injuries [10,11].
understanding of the factors that affect cognitive function.
A study from Wadsworth et al. found a significant correlation
The practical purpose of cognitive ergonomics is to elucidate the
between cognitive failures and minor injuries and accidents, and
nature of human abilities and limitations in information processing.
reported that the relationship amongst accidents, minor injuries, and
This means that the specific goal is to improve work conditions and
cognitive failures shared common relations and all three outcomes
human performance, as well as safety and health, and to avoid human
were related to each other [12]. In a different study, Wallace and Chen
errors and unnecessary load and stress. These aspects need to be
stated a positive correlation between cognitive failures and accidents
comprehensively studied in the context of work and other systems. In
and a negative correlation with safety behaviors [13]. A recent study
recent years, there has also been a trend to exploit the methods of
assessing the relationship between cognitive failure types and safety
neuroscience in the field of cognitive ergonomics [16].
consequences found that cognitive failures such as memory failure and
inattention could predict performance and behavior of workers [14].
Cognitive processes
Findings from the literature, it becomes clear that information on
cognitive failures is an important source to investigate accidents and Cognition covers processing and handling information in the
injuries at workplace environments. That is, observation of high human mind and brain. Cognition processes involve in encoding,
prevalence of cognitive failures in the industry may provide reliable maintaining, rehearsing, recalling, and transforming information [16].
knowledge to predict safety performance. However, research is still Human cognition can be alienated into several functions that stimulate
limited to precisely foresee what ergonomics and ergonomists can do optimal human performance [17]. It is imperative to understand
for preventing industry accidents and injuries due to cognitive failures cognitive functions that are pertinent to a specific work or task and to
and disorders. Therefore, the challenges for cognitive ergonomics and safeguard that the working environment is suitable for these job
ergonomists are to develop theoretical knowledge and methodologies conditions. The basic cognitive follows the following processes [16]:
J Ergonomics Volume 6 • Issue 4 • 1000e158
ISSN:2165-7556 JER, an open access journal
Citation: Kim IJ (2016) Cognitive Ergonomics and Its Role for Industry Safety Enhancements. J Ergonomics 6: e158. doi:
10.4172/2165-7556.1000e158
Page 2 of 3
1) Sensation and perception: 5)Work redesign to manage cognitive workload and increase human
reliability.
Signifies perception of stimuli gathered through the senses such as
sight, hearing, taste, smell, and/or touch. For example, in the medical
care environment, health care workers need to be able to recognize the Conclusion
symbols on the monitor. In the construction industry, workers should Cognitive functions are critical to safe and effective operations in
hear the warning signals and read the safety hazard symbols. the industries and workplaces. Although large variations are found
2) Attention: amongst individuals, they are mainly caused by cognitive disorders
and failures. However, even though their immense importance,
A stage where the processing is focused on certain aspects of cognitive issues have not been systematically highlighted in workplace
perceived information or processing may be divided into two or ergonomic programs. Activities that involve this branch of the field
several aspects. For example, in a control room, workers should notice have mainly focused on complex equipment such as nuclear power
if there has been a significant change in the situation. In a nursery, plants and aircraft manufacturing industries [19]. There are profound
nurses and/or nursery caregivers may need to concentrate their safety issues involved in the poor cognitive designs of equipment such
supervisions on several children at the one time. as lack of standardized controls and unclear directions [20].
3) A short term memory: Making things understandable and user-friendly designs would
Information storage is available for up to 30 seconds. It suggests to significantly facilitate to avoid mistakes, increase reaction times, and
the processes with which information is actively rehearsed and lessen learning curves [20]. In this sense, cognitive ergonomics is an
manipulated in the mind. For example, a telephone operator has to emerging branch of ergonomics and is a subset of the larger field of
practice the name of the desired person until she/he has connected the human factors and ergonomic disciplines. However, cognitive
call. A laboratory assistant needs to keep a track of the order of ergonomics is still an unexploited area for improving the design of
locations when working with several samples. machine controls, sets of instructions, and so forth. Therefore, it can be
expected that cognitive ergonomics would provide significant
4) Long-term memory: contributions to improving work performance, lean operations,
This is a permanent store for different kinds of information such as productivities, and eventually creating safer and healthier work
semantic memory, episodic memory, autobiographical memory, and environments in the industry.
procedural knowledge. Semantic memory concerns the storage of
knowledge in the world, symbols, and concepts. Episodic memory References
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J Ergonomics Volume 6 • Issue 4 • 1000e158
ISSN:2165-7556 JER, an open access journal
Citation: Kim IJ (2016) Cognitive Ergonomics and Its Role for Industry Safety Enhancements. J Ergonomics 6: e158. doi:
10.4172/2165-7556.1000e158
Page 3 of 3
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