From the Editor's Desk

Cognition

Abstract

When accidents occur the question “What were they thinking?” is often asked by those of us who are investigating the situation. When we do system design, especially the system safety aspects, we often consider the cognitive process (and errors associated with this process) of the operator. We often also wonder about the thought processes of our colleagues, our management and probably should also wonder about ourselves. The work of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman [ Ref 1] has stimulated some interesting discussion in the last several years. The main finding of Kahneman is that our minds are susceptible to systematic errors. I will enumerate a few examples that I find particularly interesting.