Speakers Name:
Neville A Stanton
Job title:
Professor Emeritus in Human Factors Engineering
Organisation:
University of Southampton
Biography:
Neville A Stanton (PhD, DSc, C.Eng, CErgHF, C.Psychol) is Professor Emeritus at the University of Southampton. With a career spanning over 40 years, he has pioneered research into how humans interact with complex, high-risk, systems in the aviation, energy, ground transportation, and maritime sectors. He has the rare combination of being a Chartered Engineer, Chartered Ergonomist, and Chartered Psychologist, and is recipient of the Sir Frederic Bartlett Medal (2012) for lifetime contributions to Human Factors. A prolific author of over 60 books (including Human Factors in Alarm Design, Human Factors in Auditory Warnings, and Human Factors in the Design and Evaluation of Central Control Room Operations) he has championed control room safety. Prof Stanton is best known for his development of Distributed Situation Awareness, a framework that explains how awareness is shared between human operators and automated agents. As an industry expert, he has advised numerous organisations on Human Factors in risk assessment and accident investigation. Professor Stanton continues to bridge the gap between theoretical psychology and practical engineering as systems become more automated.
Presentation abstract/summary:
In this presentation, Professor Neville A. Stanton explores the double-edged sword of modern automation. Drawing on Lisanne Bainbridge’s seminal work on ‘The Ironies of Automation’, Prof Stanton argues that the more we automate a system, the more critical (and difficult) the remaining human role becomes.
The core irony lies in the shift of the operator from an active controller into a passive monitor. As automation takes over routine tasks, it often leads to performance decrement where operators lose Situation Awareness. This disengagement creates the Out-of-the-Loop phenomenon, leaving operators ill-prepared to intervene during sudden system failures.
Professor Stanton will detail how high levels of automation can paradoxically increase mental workload during crises while inducing underload during normal operations. He will introduce his theory of Distributed Situation Awareness (DSA), showing that SA is not just ‘in the head’ of the operator but is an emergent property of the entire sociotechnical system. The presentation concludes with a call for human-centered design that prioritizes feedback and active engagement to ensure that if (when) automation fails, the human operator is ready and able to take back active control.