Mistake-making in man-machine systems

Both sexes suffer the same stress in the same professional conditions, and there is not a great deal of difference between men and women in the ways each responds. for the purpose of this paper the authors are only interested in systems in which the person is operating within a totally hostile, unsurvivable environment, while armoured against it by machinery and equipment. Stress may be regarded as having two sources: that caused by personal predisposition; and that caused by surrounding conditions and circumstances. Where the engineer can help to alleviate the effects of stress is in his influence upon surrounding conditions and circumstances. Most obvious areas are those depending upon, e.g., the ergonomic design of work-stations and control centres: those of power stations and factories, deep diving equipment for work at great pressures, cockpits of aircraft, bridges and engine rooms of ships, cabs of trains, capsules and spacecraft of astronauts.