Human error one calls errors, which humans have to answer for by his acting or by his physical-mental condition. Errors can be made both intentional and unintentional.

In the process of the research the definition changed itself:

• Old aspect: Human errors are the cause of an accident. In order to explain failure, one must prove errors. One must find out, in which situations humans unfounded evaluations, wrong decisions and bad estimates to meet.

• New aspect: Human errors are symptoms of more deep-seated errors in the system. In order to explain failure, one should not only look for where humans made errors. One must also look for it, why the estimate and action of humans in the given situation seemed to make sense.

The counterpart to human errors is the technical defect.

Occurrence

Human errors happen in all areas of life, situations and at each circle of acquaintances.

For others errors are particularly consequence-fraught with machine leaders, plant operators or something similar (power stations, vehicles, computer systems and medical personnel); here the so-called human Factor plays a great importance.

Causes

Human errors can have the following causes:

Psychologically

• concentration lacking
• reactivity lacking
• insufficient situation consciousness
• carelessly made decision, e.g. Nichteinbeziehung of heavy side effects when giving a medicine; see decision making
• Acceptance of wrong initial positions (e.g. misunderstandings, wrong understanding about messages or instructions, contradictory instructions, command strings, communication problems - here e.g. interruption of the information path or wrong perception; see perception errors, perception disturbances and perception deceptions
• Carelessness (misjudge/an ignoring of warning signals - "„that cannot be actually "“and/or "„that becomes to good-go already somehow! "“; see Titanic)
• Lustlosigkeit or lethargy due to task (in extreme situations)
• Ignoring usual practice (e.g. rules, state of the art, usual proceedings)
• Excessive demand respectively stress, e.g. by personnel Unterbesetzung
  • due to massing at incomplete tasks (e.g. loss of supporting systems - man-machine interface) - or
  • due to the time-critical number of events; see timing)
• Missing knowledge and abilities (routine), this triftt particularly on Springer, Aushilfen and on states of distress too.

Physically

• Fatigue
• Exhaustion
• Shock
• Injuries
• Illness incl. pain
• Influence more berauschender or the body impairing means (Alkoholisierung, drug intoxication or medicines)

Chains of errors

Some wrong decisions can itself by chains of errors independent, i.e. errors - also from technical side - cause each other (domino effect).

(Out) effects

Many accidents are to be due to human failure, for example important disasters of the navigation like the fall of the Titanic and the accident of the Exxon Valdez before Alaska. Human errors have nearly always effects both in the interior and in the external relationship.

Interior relationship

The effects in the interior relationship cover among other things negative emotions, reproaches, "„bad conscience "“, traumata, despair and in extreme cases Suizid.

External relationship

The effects in the external relationship can be among other things: An accident or a disaster, damage entrances, environmental pollution, debt, punishment, notice, separation from partners, public and in extreme cases human life.

Evaluation

Many fatal human errors are evaluated, so that they do not occur by precautions in the future again. This can be achieved by advanced training of the addressee circle, modifications by defaults and/or technical operational sequence or constructions, by revised version by defaults as well as by innovations in the technology.

Legal consequences

For the avoidance of human errors very frequently control instances and work instructions, e.g. to regulations of the state, exist the federations, the professional associations or the enterprises.

Responsible person can be exposed to a multiplicity of legal consequences, e.g. civilly and after sanction standards depending upon debt and Vorwerfbarkeit. In serious cases also a professional disqualification can come as additional penalty to carrying by a criminal court.

Civilly the representing having is generally possible. As consequences financial demands (recourse/compensation) are, warning, notice of contracts or also transfers conceivable. Service-legally the regulations come over the behavior (e.g. "„full devotion "“, "„respect for the law "“) as well as effect for example disziplinarrechtliche consequences in consideration.

In the criminal law here the negligence, if necessary with the special form thoughtlessness, comes to carrying. Are used in particular the following sanction standards: Negligent bodily injury, drunkennessness in traffic and negligent killing.

Demarcation

The term human failure is a frequent synonym for human errors. It contains however a Vorverurteilung of humans as a cause without consideration of insufficient technology. In many cases humans malfunctioned, but were not due to its abilities not able to solve from it or from the technology outgoing problem in time.

In addition there are effects, which are to due both to human errors and to technical defects.

Its own Forschungsgebiet is the error management. It describes, like humans in a man-machine system with errors, independently of their cause, goes around. The ability to the error management is a substantial reason to leave humans with high Verantwortlicheit in the technical system. Good error management can decide whether - human error or - a technical defect leads to the disaster or not.

Literature

• James Reason: Human failure: psychological factors of risk and modern technologies. Heidelberg: Spectrum of 1994. <EST: Human error, dt.> ISBN 3-86025-098-1.
• James Reason: Human error. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press 1992. ISBN 0-521-30669-8.

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