Analysis of human factors affecting seafarers’ cognitive load on maritime safety

For the shipping industry with a large number of seafarers, human factor is the key to the shipping safety. However, the current research on human error identification of maritime accidents and seafarers’ management neglects the influence of the relationship between human cognitive load and safety behavior. It is of great significance to the safety monitoring and management of the seafarers on duty. Therefore, from the perspective of ensuring the safety management of maritime transportation, this paper analyzes the factors that affect the cognitive load of seafarers from three aspects: individual factors, environmental factors, ship and shore organization. The data of cognitive load and its influencing factors of 987 inland river seafarers are collected by questionnaire survey, and the relationship between the influencing factors and cognitive load is reflected by logistic regression model. The results show that the formation of seafarers’ cognitive load is multi-dimensional, mainly affected by family care, fatigue, psychological condition, mount guard emotion, ship environment and overtime work. Subsequent studies on the cognitive load and workload of seafarers should consider physiological and psychological conditions, task difficulty, navigation environment and other multi-dimensional conditions. The findings provide theoretical basis for maritime seafarers’ safety management, such as safety risk monitoring, recruitment and selection process, and training for certification of seafarer competency. It has reference value to improve the ability of seafarer behavior correction and ensure the navigation safety of ships.