Confusion

Confusion in control activation

The confusion is due to overloading a control with several functions.

Functional confusion results from scenario ambiguity, and is typical of control sharing and display sharing.

Definition

Confusion is a situation in which the human operators are not coordinated with the machine.

Forms of confusion

Situation ambiguity, typically due to partial state definition
Mode confusion, typically due to operator's difficulties in recall the active state (operational mode).

Situational ambiguity

This term refers to cases in which the states are not defined explicitly, and the machine has no means to communicate about its behavior with other systems, and with the operators.

Mode ambiguity

Implicit state: the state is not formalized in the system design. The design assumes that it is implied from the sequence of operation (mode confusion).

Situational confusion

This term refers to cases in which the states are defined explicitly, yet the machine fails to communicate about its situation behavior with other systems, and with the operators.

Mode confusion

Explicit state: the state is formalized in the system design, but the operators are not aware of or disregard the mode (mode error).

Example

Torrey Canyon