NASA Office of Aeronautics Human Factors Division

NASA Ames Research Center maintains a research division on human factors, whose mission statement includes the enhancement of aviation system safety "by integrating human performance characteristics and technological functions to anticipate (and minimize) the probability and adverse consequences of human or system errors." On-line publications on human-newtech interfaces include analysis of problems similar to those which have arisen in incidents reported elsewhere in this Compendium. Examples include "Oops, it didn't arm." - A Case Study of Two Automation Surprises by Everett Palmer; Altitude Deviations: Breakdowns of an Error-Tolerant System by Palmer, Edwin Hutchins, Richard Ritter and Inge van Cleemput; Mode Usage in Automated Cockpits: Some Initial Observations by Asaf Degani, Michael Shafto and Alex Kirlik; Use of the Operator Function Model to Represent Mode Transitions by Degani, Christine Mitchell and Alan Chappell; and On the Types of Modes in Human-Machine Interaction, by Asaf Degani.
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