Information processing and intuitive decision-making on the fireground: towards a model of expert intuition

Abstract

In addition to other cognitive tasks that need attending to, experienced fireground commanders are also faced with a crucial task of identifying various environmental and informational cues that could affect their performance on the fireground. Although these cues play a crucial role in activating the pattern recognition or intuitive decision-making process, the major challenge remains that they usually emerge from multiple sources, thereby increasing the cognitive load in working memory. Previous studies have shown that attending to multiple informational sources has serious implications for intuitive decisionmaking as it then becomes more difficult to select the most relevant cues amidst the rapidly evolving conditions. In order to determine how firefighters cope with this difficult task of processing information from multiple sources, 16 experienced fireground commanders were interviewed using a semi-structured critical decision method protocol. Following the insights derived from the knowledge elicitation process, this paper presents and describes an expert intuition model, which we termed the information filtering and intuitive decision-making model. The model attempts to conceptualize how experienced firefighters scan through multiple information sources from which they are then able to select the most relevant cues that eventually aid the development of workable action plans.

The role of expertise in dynamic risk assessment: A reflection of the problem-solving strategies used by experienced fireground commanders

“…However, the scope of this paper is not to discuss crosscultural differences between the UK and Nigerian fire services but to report the breakdown of the problem solving strategies that were utilized by both groups of firefighters. We have also developed a decision making model elsewhere that attempts to describe how both groups of experts make intuitive decisions on the fireground (Okoli et al, 2015) The participants were carefully selected on the basis of their rank/position and also through peer nomination; this was to ensure that expertise is verified and not assumed (see Table 1). Since this study aims to elicit the knowledge and skills used by experienced fire commanders, it became crucial to ensure that only the most qualified experts were recruited.…”

“…When experts attain certain level of competence they tend to rely more on automated (tacit) knowledge, which sometimes result in ignoring certain cues they feel unfamiliar with. Hence the danger of expertise in this regard lies in missing out, explaining away or ignoring some important cues (Okoli et al, 2015). Klein (2003) used the term fixation to explain how actors sometimes choose a particular course of action and tenaciously cling to it without the willingness to compromise.…”

Identifying rail asset maintenance processes: a human-centric and sensemaking approach

“…The CDM interview probes as presented in Table 2 are standard in CDMs (please see Klein et al 1989;Hoffman et al 1998) and have been previously used successfully to identify expert knowledge within the context of cognition, technology and work (see for examples Tichon 2007;Ross et al 2014;Hoffman et al 2009;Okoli et al 2016;Rankin et al 2016). …”

Towards the Classification of Fireground Cues: A Qualitative Analysis of Expert Reports

“…However, we wish to clarify that the intention of the current article is not to discuss cross‐cultural differences between both groups of experts, but to report the type of cues identified and utilized by each officer on the fireground. We have elsewhere shown that a significant level of similarity exists between both groups of experts on the basis of the type of cues sought and utilized on the fireground (Okoli, Watt, Weller, & Wong, ; Okoli et al., ). For example, environmental cues such as wind velocity, wind direction and external temperature and fire‐related cues such as smoke colour, size of fire and flame texture were not only found to convey similar meaning to officers but also affected response effort alike, regardless of location.…”

“…What then is a cue? Wong () defined it as any stimulus with implications for action, a feature of the task environment, which through the aid of knowledge and experience has been associated in memory with particular events (Okoli, Watt & Weller, ). Over the years, research on cue‐based performance has gained more attention as scholars continue to explore the critical cues upon which experts base their judgement.…”