12 METRO Friday, November 6, 2009 D Edited by Stephen Mulkearn features@metroireland.ie In Focus A recent US poll of 3,000 people found a quarter couldnt remember their own home phone numbers Look to the end of an errorMake no mistake: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Joseph Hallinan has written a book explaining why we make errors and what we can do to stop them by JAMES DAy C hesley Sullenberger received the Masters Medal from the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators in London last week after his crash-landing on New Yorks Hudson River saved the lives of 150 passengers. But the pilot of US Airways flight 1549 (pictured below) didnt take all the credit because his crew used something called flattening the authority gradient to decide their course of action in just six minutes. If you have a bunch of talented people in the cockpit it makes sense to make all of them input on a decision for a better outcome, says Joseph Hallinan (pictured above), author of the book Errornomics, in which he investigates why we make mistakes and how we can avoid them. When the plane landed on the Hudson the captain got credit. But he frequently credited his first officer and other people involved for the way they worked together to bring the plane in. This theory collapses the authority of the captain and makes everyone a group of equals. As a result its proven you make far fewer errors. Hallinans interest in human error grew out of a story he wrote for the Wall Street Journal. I was looking at anaesthesiologists and how theyd reduced their operating errors when I came across a lot of interesting research on human error that I thought could be applied to people in their everyday lives, he says. They found if the nurses in the operating room stopped treating surgeons as superior beings and spoke up if they thought something was wrong it reduced errors. Hallinan began building a file of newspaper cuttings involving human error. Some were funny, some were tragic. There was one from Britain where people had ransacked the home of a baby doctor because they had mistaken the word paediatrician for paedophile. So why do we make mistakes? According to Hallinan, assumption is the mother of all cock- ups. People have a poor understanding of how their perception works and they tend to think its more foolproof than is actually the case. In certain forms of perception there are consistent, provable biases and those biases predispose us to make errors. A good example of this is taking exams. The perceived wisdom is to go with your first answer because its most likely to be right. In fact academic research from the past 80 years has shown the opposite to be true. Its much better to go with your second guess but people dont do that. Also, we entrust doctors and airport inspectors to do very important jobs and if theyre wrong, people die, says Hallinan. In the case of baggage inspectors, there is a basic human limitation on being able to find things such as guns and bomb parts hidden in cases. Inspectors look at thousands a day and it causes their eyes to fail, they stop seeing things. The same thing happens with radiologists looking at thousands of X-rays, they begin to see what they expect to see nothing so theyll miss tumours they ought to catch. But stamping out these mistakes is easier said than done. Solutions are thin on the ground because the research is relatively new but, basically, doctors predictions of human mortality are too optimistic. Hallinan points to research by Cass Sunstein, who oversees information and regulatory affairs for the Obama administration at the White House. He argues pretty persuasively that in these cases its much better to rely on statistics as a guide than on a doctors opinions, even if they are experts in their field. But before we go the whole hog and rely on computers for the answers, Hallinan does have a word of warning. Computers are just as flawed because the programmes are written by humans with the same biases as everyone else. Studies show theyre also too optimistic with their results. Errornomics by Joseph Hallinan (priced 8.99) is available now from www.amazon.com Lucky escape: Captain Chesley Sullenberger brought flight 1549 down safely in the Hudson River Picture: AP Tips for avoiding mistakes 1 Make a list. A leading medical journal recently reported that when surgeons used a pre-surgical checklist, the death rate from surgical error plunged by 47 per cent. 2 Second-guess. Most people think its smarter, when taking a test, to go with their first instinct. Dont. Most people who change their answers usually improve their test scores. 3 Write it down. Our memory automatically distorts our recall of past actions, making them seem more favourable. For instance, college students consistently remember their school grades as being much better than they actually were. 4 Get some sleep. A study found even moderate sleep deprivation can have the same hazardous effects as being drunk. People who drive a car after being awake for 17 to 19 hours performed worse than those with a blood alcohol level of .05 per cent. 5 Do less. Multi-tasking is a great way to make mistakes. What will your boss be more concerned about, taking your time or getting everything wrong? True or false: Joseph Hallinan settles a few burning questions n Footballers can only remember three things at a time A study a few months ago showed that when judo competitors were interviewed after matches they could only remember 29 per cent of the instructions their coach had given them, so if you gave them ten things to do theyd only remember three. Theres also a famous study from the 1950s, called The Magical Number Seven, Plus Or Minus Two. It proves human short memory limits arent great and we can only remember about seven things at one time and that is the absolute maximum. n I can always remember a face but never a name Theyve given people fake biographies, including their job, where they live, where they were born, and the thing people remembered least was their name. Names are just labels and dont mean much to people. Short-term memory is based on meaning, which is why when you go to a party, you think, Oh gosh, I cant remember that persons name, but youll remember where you saw them last or what job they do. n Women are always right Men tend to be over-confident in their abilities. This leads to a variety of errors, from speeding tickets to bad investments. Men will trade stocks (pictured) more frequently than women because they think theyre better at it but analysis shows men had lower returns than women. n The worst error in history For me its the war in Iraq. The US felt Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and the head of the CIA at the time said it was a slam-dunk. Its a classic example of the over-confidence I was talking about in men. It was a colossal blunder. index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html