Presentation
Investigating the Impact of Procedural Complexity on Performance: A Simulation Study
DescriptionProcedural breakdowns can lead to catastrophic consequences in high-risk industries. Although research has suggested that complexity contributes to procedural failure, there is a paucity of empirical evidence supporting such an effect on performance. In this study, we examine the impact of procedural task complexity on three performance metrics: completion time, errors, and workload. A simulation testbed was developed to emulate several common chemical processing tasks. Forty-eight participants participated in a controlled experiment, investigating the effects of various levels of objective and subjective step-level procedure complexity on performance. The Complexity Index for Procedures – Step level (CIPS) was used as an objective method to measure complexity of steps in the procedure and participants were asked to rate the perceived complexity of each step subjectively. Our results demonstrate that the completion time increases with a higher level of procedure complexity. Number of errors increase significantly for tasks with medium level of complexity compared to low level of complexity. Our analysis supports the efficacy CIPS index which aligned well with perceived complexity at the step-level. These findings may inform proactive methods for managing task complexity to reduce their negative impact on performance.
Event Type
Lecture
TimeTuesday, October 14th2:10pm - 2:30pm CDT
LocationGrand A
Cognitive Engineering & Decision Making