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4
Decision Making
Picture a situation where a coal miner is working and encounters smoke and flying dust.
What does the miner do? Don the self-contained self-rescuer (SCSR)? Radio a supervisor? Find
out where the smoke is coming from? Immediately set out for a place of safety? Which step
comes first?
In this chapter we explore the role that decision making plays in response to a potential
mine emergency. To effectively respond to a mine emergency, miners must have the
psychological tools to detect signs that an emergency exists and then use these tools to make
effective decisions about how to act. In short, effective decision making is critical for ensuring
that miners can extract themselves to a place of safety in an emergency.
We take a human-systems integration approach to understand decision making in a mine
emergency. Our intent is to highlight knowledge about human strengths and limitations in the
context of an interactive system of people, equipment, and their environment that will be useful
for preparing miners for self-escape in the event of a mine emergency (see Henricksen et al.,
2008). We focus on the miner, giving an overview of psychology and neuroscience work
documenting what happens in the brain and body in stressful situations. We then use this
knowledge to elucidate the factors that cause people to make decisions (good or bad) that could
influence self-escape.
There are several different approaches to the investigation of decision making. For
example, the normative approach describes how decisions ought to be made – the optimal,
rational decision given a fully-informed decision maker. In contrast, the descriptive approach
characterizes how people actually make decisions, the biases they bring to the table, and the
different factors that influence the decisions they make (Shafir and Tversky, 2002). Finally,
naturalistic decision making can be loosely thought of as an extension of the descriptive
approach. It addresses how people make decisions in demanding environments (e.g., uncertain
and changing environments, stressful situations or when there is time pressure; Klein, et al.,
1993). Naturalistic decision making also accounts for how decision making practices may
change as a function of a person’s experience, their work culture, etc. In this chapter, we take a
more descriptive than normative approach. Our goal is to highlight the importance of considering
decision making and decision science research more broadly for enhancing self-escape in a mine
emergency.
Certain themes recur throughout this chapter. One such theme is the importance of the
use of decision science research (arising from the fields of psychology and neuroscience) to
inform and shape how miners deal with emergency situations. Miners need to be knowledgeable
of typical warning signals and how to efficiently and accurately determine if a true emergency
exists. Decision science research can shed light on the types of information miners might miss
and the common mistakes that may be made in emergency situations. To the extent typical
emergency scenarios can be predicted, decision science research can also inform the
development of emergency protocols and training procedures so that mine workers are able to
make effective decisions and take an appropriate course of action to escape to a place of safety in
the case of an emergency.
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A second theme in this chapter is communication. In mining emergencies, miners not
only need to be able to communicate with one another underground, but they also need to send
and receive information with communication centers on the surface. Effective communication
involves an understanding of the cognitive capacities of individual miners and how information
is conveyed from the surface personnel to miners underground and back and among those
miners who are underground. Because technology is a key asset in these situations, successful
communication also involves an adequate understanding of how miners use technology to
communicate and the limitations of that technology. Communication is also driven by the
emphasis placed on receiving timely and adequate information at the organization level. Often
there are brief opportunities to intervene and stop a potential emergency event from building to
the next level. These brief opportunities are referred to as “golden minutes” (see e.g. Horne et al.,
1995). The adequate exchange of information and fluent communication is necessary to take
advantage of these “golden minutes” opportunities.
DETECTING A MINING EMERGENCY
Risk is an inherent component of underground coal mines. Therefore, miners must draw a
distinction between routine hazards and those that require self-escape. How is such a distinction
drawn?
Sensitivity and Bias
One model to conceptualize the detection of a mining emergency, drawn from a rich
literature in psychology of attention, is called signal detection theory (Green and Swets, 1966).
Signal detection theory is driven by the general premise that almost all decisions people make
take place in the presence of some uncertainty. Signal detection theory provides a language for
representing decision making in the presence of uncertainty. As such, it may be useful for
thinking about the decisions miners make (and the factors that influence those decisions) when
faced with information that there may be an emergency.
Consider a situation in which a miner must decide whether there is an emergency
situation. There are four possible outcomes (see Figure 4-1).
The miner’s goal is to accumulate information that will increase the likelihood of getting
either a hit or a correct rejection, while reducing the likelihood of an outcome in the two error
boxes. Signal detection theory can be used to conceptualize people’s ability to detect an actual
emergency. There are two important factors: A miner’s sensitivity (i.e., the ability to detect an
actual emergency) and bias (i.e., the predisposition to say whether there is an emergency or not).
Sensitivity and bias are independent and thus can be influenced by separate factors.
In biomedical fields, sensitivity (as in the sensitivity of a test for a particular illness)
relates to a probability of the test revealing a positive result given that a patient is ill. Making an
analogy to mine emergencies, sensitivity refers to the likelihood of detecting that there is a mine
emergency when there is in fact one occurring.
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FIGURE 4-1 Possible outcomes faced by a miner
SOURCE: Generated by the committee.
To increase sensitivity, miners must become better at perceiving indicators of emergency
situations. With proper training, a miner is more likely to learn what cues indicate a real
emergency situation and which do not. This means that with more training, miners will be able to
acquire more (and more reliable) information (Willingham, 2001). Sensitivity is also impacted
by situational awareness. Situational awareness is, in simplest terms, knowing what is around
you. Situational awareness can be defined as involving (a) the perception of a situation's
elements in time and space, (b) comprehension of their meaning, and (c) projection of a near
future status for the condition in question (Endsley, 1988; Endsley and Garland, 2000). (See
Chapter 6 for a discussion of developing training.)
Related to the idea of situational awareness is the concept of information uncertainty (i.e.,
when a person does not have all the information pertaining to the situation at hand). Recognizing
when information uncertainty exists—and the steps that need to be taken to obtain necessary
information—is imperative for the effective diagnosing of a potential emergency situation.
Bias is influenced by characteristics of the miner, the self-escape task, and the
equipment/technology in place to aid self-escape (i.e., the inner-most circle of Figure 1-2 in the
Chapter 1). As an example, people have a tendency to hold an optimism bias in which they
initially ignore signs that there is a problem (Sharot et al., 2007). This bias could impact the
immediacy with which miners recognize a problem exists and diagnose it as an emergency. In
addition, if miners do not trust the safety equipment (e.g., self-contained self-rescuers [SCSRs],
carbon monoxide [CO] monitors) or have adverse expectations for what it will be like to use the
equipment, they may be biased not to acknowledge that there is an emergency situation at hand.
Bias is also impacted by organizational and external factors. For example, if there are external
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penalties for false alarms (e.g., lost productivity that could adversely impact the mining company
or even peer influence with other miners not putting on their SCSRs), this may make miners less
likely to respond, a conservative bias. Bias is also influenced by whether there is the presence or
absence of an organizational safety culture, with the latter implicitly creating pressure not to
false alarm (see Chapter 5).
In sum, many factors can influence bias and sensitivity. The factors outlined above are
meant to provide an illustration of system and miner characteristics that can influence how
miners respond to indicators of a potential mine emergency.
Next, we consider two specific examples of an emergency situation where the signal
detection theory framework can be used to better understand a miner’s decision making process.
In the first example, a miner encounters smoke and dust (and unbeknownst to the miner, toxic
levels of carbon monoxide, CO, in the atmosphere). The miner must decide whether or not the
environmental factors encountered mean one should don the SCSR. Correctly diagnosing the
atmosphere as unbreathable would be a ‘hit’ (see Figure 4-1). In contrast, determining that the
air is still breathable would be a ‘miss.’ Importantly, the miner’s decision is not only influenced
by sensitivity to cues about air quality but also by a bias not to acknowledge that there may be an
emergency situation. If the miner does not have faith that the SCSR will work, has not been
properly trained on the equipment, or is fearful of negative consequences for using an SCSR
when it might not be absolutely necessary, he or she might be biased not to acknowledge the
gravity of the atmospheric conditions and thus conclude that the SCSR does not yet need to be
used – which in this situation would be a ‘miss.’ In other words, even though a miner might be
highly sensitive to environmental cues that the atmosphere is dangerous, the bias not to
acknowledge the gravity of the situation may push one to conclude that there is no need to don
the SCSR when in fact it would be the correct response.
In the second example, a CO monitor goes off and the miner must decide if one should
self-escape. The CO monitor was actually triggered from several pieces of diesel equipment
operating nearby and thus self-escape is not necessary. If the miner decides that there is no actual
emergency situation because information is received from fellow crew members about the diesel
equipment, then this would be a ‘correct rejection.’ Note however that even without knowledge
of the diesel equipment the miner might be biased to assume that everything is fine. This could
be because the CO monitor has false alarmed several times in the past. In this second example, a
miner’s bias would lead to the correct decision – pushing the miner to correctly reject the CO
monitor alarm as a sign of an emergency.
This second example also illustrates the concept of “alarm fatigue,” a situation in which
people learn to ignore alarms or possible environmental signs that there might be a problem
because they routinely occur and usually do not indicate an imminent threat to safety. Although,
in the above example, alarm fatigue did not lead to a failure to respond to an emergency, there
are other situations where it could cause a miner to ignore important signs that a problem has
occurred. It is imperative to make miners aware of the possibility of alarm fatigue and create
training conditions that provide miners with knowledge about the mine and their equipment and
technology so that they can successfully determine which alarms and abnormal environmental
conditions (e.g., smoke) are most likely to represent an imminent threat to safety. Such training
can provide information about circumstances under which miners should err on the side of
caution (i.e., have a bias to say an emergency exists) because the benefits of a “hit” – correctly
diagnosing a problem – far outweigh the negative consequences of a false alarm. One such
example is donning an SCSR when there is smoke. Because breathing in this environment can be
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potentially very harmful, miners should be trained with a bias to don an SCSR when
environmental conditions dictate it is likely needed (and not risk waiting to put it on until it is too
late).
In summary, the above examples illustrate that it is not just a miners’ ability to interpret
cues in the environment regarding whether self-escape is necessary, but also one’s bias for being
willing to say that an actual emergency exists or not. Being aware that both sensitivity and bias
can influence decision making for self-escape is important for devising the best training methods
to prepare miners for possible emergency situations.
Expertise
One way to train emergency detection is to help miners see their environment through the
eyes of a seasoned miner or “expert miner.” Identifying the specific factors that constitute an
expert miner is a difficult task. However, for the purposes of the present discussion, expert
miners might be viewed as those nearing the end of a life-long mining career (as opposed to
those individuals who have only recently entered the workforce). The expertise view (see Klein
et al., 2013) is designed to allow less experienced miners to discover what an expert miner would
identify as an emergency situation and why. Research on expertise demonstrates that highly
knowledgeable individuals tend to classify situations based on their underlying causes while
novices tend to be side-tracked by more trivial features. The bottom line is that a novice or
inexperienced miner (or even a seasoned miner who has not been properly trained) may be
missing important information needed to classify an event as an emergency or not.
There are techniques that can be helpful in eliciting expert knowledge (e.g., how a
seasoned miner might act or make decisions in a potential emergency situation), such as verbal
protocol analysis (Ericsson and Simon, 1999). Verbal protocol analysis is intended to capture the
information an expert attends to when generating a decision or course of action rather that a
description or explanation of what they are doing – the latter which may change by instructions
to think aloud. Verbal protocol analysis is designed to simply help externalize the thoughts
experts might otherwise keep internal. As such, it can be a useful method for ascertaining the
implicit wisdom of expert miners.
It should be noted that experts do not always perform better than their novice
counterparts. When an expert’s goal is to predict the mistakes a novice may make, they often do
this less well than novices themselves (Hinds, 1999). This is because experts often have trouble
introspecting on their own performance knowledge (Beilock, 2010). It is also the case that when
situations are ill-structured, where a situation is not familiar and it is hard to predict what will
happen given initial problem cues, experts often do no better than their novice counterparts in
interpreting these cues (Devine and Kozlowski, 1995). However, in situations where the
information a miner encounters means there is a high probability of a certain event (e.g., smoke
indicating a fire) and, given this information, there is an easily recognizable course of action
(e.g., fighting the fire, deciding to self-escape), experts tend to outperform less experienced
individuals in terms of diagnosing a particular situation and taking the appropriate course of
action. In these situations, verbal protocol analysis may be advantageous in capturing this expert
knowledge.
Two classic studies on the psychology of expertise demonstrate that experts tend to
classify situations (especially well-structured situations) based on underlying causes while
novices are often side-tracked by trivial information that can lead them down the wrong solution
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path. In the first study, physics professors (experts) and undergraduate physics students (novices)
were asked to sort a number of physics problems based on the characteristics they deemed most
important (Chi et al.,, 1981). Novices tended to categorize the problems by surface features of
problems whereas experts classify according to the major underlying physics principle governing
problem solution.
In a coal mining situation, this could manifest itself as inexperienced miner concluding
that, when a CO alarm goes off, this means that there is a fire (and, in turn, if the novice miner
finds there is no fire, and then ignores the correct alarm). In contrast, as a more experienced
miner would understand that that a CO alarm could be triggered from a variety of underlying
sources (e.g., a faulty alarm, a fire, nearby diesel equipment, or an accurate reading of gases from
some other source). The ability to recognize that there are multiple underlying causes of the same
alarm is important for determining what other information one needs to obtain to make the best
decision about how to react.
In the second study, Lesgold et al. (1988) assessed expertise in diagnosing X-rays. First
and second year medical residents (novices) and radiologists (experts) viewed a series of X-ray
pictures and verbalized their diagnoses. The expert radiologists quickly evoked a schema (a
mental model) for the probable diagnosis. They then brought in additional information to test
their diagnoses (to try and both confirm and disconfirm – see discussion of confirmation bias
errors below). Critically, they changed or altered their diagnosis as more details were discovered.
In contrast, the medical residents (novices) did not apply the appropriate or complete
confirmation tests to the problem schema they invoked. Furthermore, the residents’ schema was
usually based on surface features of the X-ray and did not change easily with new or
contradictory information.
Two important qualities of expert performance can be taken from the above mentioned work
and can be incorporated into training for self-escape in mine emergencies. The goal is to help
miners to classify a situation appropriately and act in the most successful way to facilitate self-
escape.
• Expert performance is based on an extensive knowledge base and the organization of this
knowledge in such a way that experts are able to recognize important underlying themes
in a problem. This entails that experts see meaningful patterns of information where
novices do not (Chi et al., 1981).
• Experts have strong self-monitoring skills and metacognitive abilities, especially in well-
structured situations. Experts are more accurate at judging the difficulty of the problems
they encounter and noticing where their thinking might have gone awry. This allows
them to flexibly update their mental model of the situation when new or contradictory
information is encountered (Lesgold et al., 1988; Kruger and Dunning, 1999).
AFTER A MINING EMERGENCY IS DETECTED
Noticing a potential oddity in the environment is largely subserved by an area of the brain
called the prefrontal cortex. The very front part of the human brain that sits above our eyes, the
prefrontal cortex is the seed of thinking and reasoning abilities (Beilock, 2010). Once there is a
realization that something is amiss, a variety of brain and body reactions occur in response to a
potentially stressful situation. For instance, adrenalin increases in the bloodstream which results
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in several physiological responses such as a racing heart, sweaty palms, and muscles preparing
for action. Cortisol is also secreted which helps keep the heart racing and blood sugar up.
Registering that there is an emergency can also lead to worries about the situation and its
consequences. These worries can overwhelm a person’s working memory, which governs one’s
ability to think clearly in the moment, take in new and important information, and to make
reasoned decisions (Wang, 2005; Beilock, 2008). Working memory is defined as a transient
memory store involved in the control of a limited amount of information immediately relevant to
the task at hand (Miyake and Shah, 1999). In simpler terms, working memory can be thought of
as a flexible mental scratchpad that allows people to work with whatever information is inside
consciousness. Working memory also helps people attend to some information while ignoring
other information (Baddeley 1986; Engle, 2002). When working memory is compromised in
stressful situations, decision making can be impacted.
The concept of working memory in the context of the larger framework on human
information processing is shown in Figure 4-2, a very general construal of human information
processing with information bombarding a person from the outside world. At any given moment,
people attend to some of what is around us and ignore other information. The information that is
attended to enters working memory. Here, working memory is charged with the task of making
sense of this new information in the context of what is already known (i.e., stored in long-term
memory). As such, working memory plays an important role in the decision-making process. It
represents a person’s ability to work with whatever information is held in consciousness, match
it to past experiences, and generate an appropriate course of action. It follows then, that if
working memory is compromised, a person may perform at a less than optimal level (e.g., make
poor decisions or select an inappropriate course of action).
FIGURE 4.2 General View of Human Information Processing
Research demonstrates that simply making people aware of common internal reactions in
stressful situations (e.g., sweaty palms, beating heart) can make these reactions less distracting
(Jameison et al., 2010). It’s also the case that training people to view their stress response as a
sign of challenge rather than doom can lessen the negative impact of physiological arousal on
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effective thinking and reasoning (Mattaralla-Micke et al., 2011). One reason for this effect is that
normalizing these responses makes people less likely to dwell on them. Dwelling on them
further limits the working memory needed to be effective decision makers in stressful situations.
In addition to the stress signals generated from the body, it is important to note that CO
poisoning—which is a danger in some underground coal mines—can impact brain functioning.
Specifically, CO poisoning is thought to cause difficulty in making decisions and processing
information, key functions of the working memory system (Cohen, 2012).
In non-stressful situations, working memory works in concert with emotional processing.
However, when working memory is compromised, people’s decisions can be unduly influenced
by emotional processes, which can lead to poor outcomes. This occurs because there are,
generally, two ways that people make decisions. One way relies heavily on mental resources,
such as working memory. It is more systematic and analytic. The other way is based more on
affective and emotional processes (Kahneman, 2003; Sloman, 1996; Stanovich and West, 2000).
When people are in stressful situations, worries tend to co-opt working memory, leaving only the
more affective processes to govern decision making. This condition may result in decisions that
put other miners or oneself in danger, such as going back for friend, even though there are very
clear indicators that this could put the rescuer and possibly other miners in extreme danger.
Training miners to be aware that these emotion-driven decisions occur, and when they are most
likely to occur, can provide them with better tools to understand their behavior and make optimal
decisions in stressful mining emergencies.
This science may inform training. For example, a training exercise could be developed in
which miners encounter fictitious situations in which they might have an impulse to go back into
a mine to rescue others. If the consequences (both positive and negative) of such a decision are
made clear, the miner may be better able to make the most appropriate decision in the moment.
Such education could also address cultural norms that dictate that miners must stick together,
regardless of the consequences. Miners need to be taught that cultural norms may push them to
make decisions that are inherently risky and driven by emotions. Miners need to be trained to
consider all of the possible options in these situations.
Note, a compromised working memory is not the only source of poor decision making.
As an example, having an inappropriate procedure for donning an SCSR represents an error in
long-term memory that could lead to problems with self-escape. The miner, here, is not
compromised because of reduced working memory resources, but because he or she learned the
wrong steps to begin with. Or, a miner may make the wrong decision about how to act based on
analogy to a past circumstance that was similar in terms of surface features (e.g., a CO alarm),
but not in underlying cause (e.g., a fire versus a source-unspecified gas leak). A lack of
knowledge may lead to a particular course of errors (e.g., the miner finds there is no fire, so
ignores the alarm, even though it is correctly diagnosing air problems), that could be avoided
with training that provides a more detailed knowledge base of common environmental signs of
problems, their underlying causes, and sensible courses of action.
We turn to the issue of knowledge acquisition in more detail below and to the
development of optimal training practices in Chapter 6.
DECISION MAKING FOR SELF-ESCAPE
As noted throughout this chapter, effective decision making is a critical component of
successful self-escape in a mine emergency. Importantly, effective decision making is not simply
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based on in-the-moment choices, but is also based on the long-term accumulation of knowledge
and skills.
Knowledge of Equipment and Technology
Miners need to have extensive experience with the use of breathing apparatus, such as the
SCSR, and they need to be able to use this equipment in conditions that are not optimal
(including, but not limited to, poor visibility). Miners also need to be able to effectively operate
these devices in stressful environments that compromise the working memory one would
otherwise have at his or her disposal. One way this can be accomplished is by training miners so
that the use of these devices is automatic or habitual.
It is believed that skill acquisition progresses through distinct phases characterized by
differences in the memory operations supporting performance (Beilock and Carr, 2001). In the
early stages of learning, skill execution is supported by working memory and monitored in a
step-by-step fashion (Fitts and Posner, 1967; Anderson, 1993; Proctor and Dutta, 1995).
However, procedural knowledge specific to the task develops with practice. Procedural
knowledge operates largely outside of working memory and does not require constant control
(Anderson, 1993; Beilock et al., 2002). Thus, in contrast to earlier stages of performance, once a
skill becomes relatively well learned, attention may not be needed for the step-by-step control of
execution.
One can think of procedural memory as a skill tool box that contains a recipe that, if
followed, will produce a successful bike ride, baseball swing, or the donning of an SCSR.
Interestingly, these recipes operate largely outside of conscious awareness. This makes it hard
for a person to articulate procedural memory. If a person does not think about the specific steps
of performing a task, reporting these steps to someone else can be difficult. Thus, procedural
memory needs to be assessed by demonstration rather than by verbal report. Having adequate
procedural memory for example on how to don an SCSR helps ensure that miners can put these
devices on flawlessly even when their working memory is impaired.
Another way to characterize the different types of thinking that occur at various skill
levels is the “skill, rule, knowledge” approach (Rasmussen, 1983; see also Reason, 1990). The
phrases skill, rule, and knowledge broadly characterize the degree of conscious control a person
has over what he is doing. For instance, knowledge refers to an activity where a high degree of
conscious attention needs to be used to make decisions or perform an activity. This might be the
case when a new miner initially learns to don an SCSR. With practice, however, this activity
should ideally progresses to a rule and then a skill where it can be completed largely outside of
conscious.
This classification can be useful to help diagnosis errors. For instance, an error in
donning an SCSR that occurs because the miner automatically skips a step is quite different from
not knowing the steps in the first place. By understanding different forms of errors, training
practices can be developed to target specific mistakes (see Reason, 1990). This classification
model can also be used to help determine when externalized information about completing
particular skills – such as checklists or acronyms (see Gawande, 2009) – may be most effective
(e.g., if miners repeatedly skip steps, an acronym that includes all the steps could be useful).
In summary, the goal is to train miners to a level where they can use necessary breathing
apparatus automatically, even though they hardly ever use it. In Chapter 6 we talk in detail about
what decision science research says about how to train procedural memory. One theme is the
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idea that repetition in itself does not ensure adequate proficiency. Rather, mastery, or a
demonstration of that proficiency is needed.
Miners also have to know when to use breathing apparatus. This needs to be trained to
automaticity so that a miner, in the moment, does not have to make decisions when working
memory might be compromised (either by stress, CO, or both). For habitual reaction, the miner
has to have thorough expectations for what donning and using an SCSR is like and trust in the
equipment. The miner also has to have experience problem solving on the fly so that dealing
with unexpected events also becomes second nature. Research demonstrates that when tasks
have become proceduralized, people have thinking and reasoning resources left to devote to
other issues (Beilock et al., 2002). Proceduralizing the components of donning breathing
apparatus, and when to don it, leaves valuable cognitive resources necessary to solve unexpected
problems in the moment.
Miners also have to have adequate knowledge about how other safety technology in the
mines work. This includes gas-monitoring devices, communication systems, lifelines, and refuge
chambers. One way to acquire this type of knowledge is through emergency drills and protocols
which spell out, in a step-by-step way, all the information about the mine that might aid in self-
escape.
Finally, it is important to note that miners also need to be trained in terms of the
limitations of the technology they use. They need to know what signs to look for if their
equipment is not working or if it needs to be replaced. A thorough understanding of the
limitations of the technology and equipment will help prepare the miners to make optimal
decisions in an emergency.
Knowledge of the Mine
Well-practiced primary and secondary escape routes are important for successful self-
escape in the event of a mine emergency. Ideally, miners should have memorized how to get to
an escape route such that they can walk out of a mine in situations where there is limited
visibility or in situations where stressful conditions make reasoning or navigating difficult. This
knowledge is especially important in situations where the escape way map on the section is not
visible.
In addition to rote knowledge of escapeways, it is also important for miners to have
detailed knowledge of the spatial layout of the mine as a whole – otherwise known as a cognitive
map of the mine. A cognitive map (or mental map) is an internal memory representation of the
layout of the mine (Tolman, 1932). Cognitive maps allow a person to visualize the layout of a
particular place in one’s “mind’s eye.” Importantly, a cognitive map preserves spatial relations
and distances from one landmark to another (Kosslyn, 1994) and thus can play an essential role
in helping miners use a landmark to determine the best route for exiting a mine in the event of an
emergency. Cognitive maps should not be limited to primary escapeways, but should also
include basic knowledge of the ventilation system (and how it could change during a mining
emergency), caches for breathing apparatus, lifelines, communication systems and refuge
chambers. Miners should also know how to use the environment to find information needed to
self-escape (e.g., use life lines to determine the location of cache).
Cognitive neuroscience research has determined that cognitive maps are derived using
visual imagery and many of the same visual processing areas in the brain involved in actually
perceiving information in the world are used when people invoke visual images (Kosslyn, 1994).
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Knowing that visual images share many features with perception lends insight into how mental
maps of the mine can be committed to memory. Specifically miners should not just be given
verbal or written information about the layout of the mine, but should actually use visual
information (maps) to memorize important information. Research also shows that movement
through an environment can help people understand distances and spatial layouts (Burgess,
2006) and that active exploring and having to make decisions about which direction to go in a
training situation (Bjork, in press), as opposed to just following someone else out of the mine
during training, can also be beneficial for learning spatial layouts. Requiring individual and
groups of miners to walk escape routes and make decisions about possible paths to safety in
training exercises will likely be beneficial for miners developing a thorough understanding of the
mine layout.
Locations of caches, refuge chambers and other key places can serve as important
landmarks, providing miners with information about where they are in the mine. Route
knowledge is thought to develop by registering one’s actions with a set of landmarks in the
environment (Siegel and White, 1975). Explicitly teaching miners to think about mine
landmarks with respect to particular ways out of the mine could prove beneficial for learning the
layout of the mine and for coming up with novel escape paths in the event that self-escape in a
mine emergency necessitates changes from practiced escape routes. Landmarks are a way to
“off-load” navigation onto the environment (Waller and Lippa, 2007) —as long as these
landmarks do not move. For instance, if a miner is aware that a belt line (a landmark) leads out
of the mine, the miner can follow the belt line in the event of an emergency with limited
visibility. This form of cognitive off-loading may be especially important in stressful situations
where effective decision making, planning, or navigation abilities are stunted. Following a belt
line or some other stable external landmark limits the need to navigate and reason on one’s own.
The lifeline represents one form of cognitive off-loading already in place. Miners can use the
lifelines to determine the locations of the nearest escapeway and SCSR cache.
Knowledge of What to Do to Self-Escape
Successful self-escape in an underground coal mine emergency involves (a) detection, (b)
assessment and (c) escape phases (see Figure 1-1 in Chapter 1).
Detection involves developing conceptual knowledge of common problems indicators.
This is akin to how experts build up a rich semantic knowledge base in their domain of expertise
(Chi et al., 1981; Lesgold et al., 1988). This knowledge allows miners to classify the problem
appropriately (Chase and Simon, 1973; Ericsson, 1988) and then to assess the problem, which
includes identifying possible solutions. Finally, the escape phase involves the development of
“if, then” rules. If a particular scenario occurs, take a particular course of action. These “if, then”
rules can also be considered as procedural knowledge that is enacted fairly automatically once
the problem has been identified (Anderson, 1993). As an example, in the physics work
mentioned above (Chi et al, 1981), it was found that expert physicists actually spent more time
than novices analyzing a problem in order to decide what kind of problem it was, but less time
actually solving the problem. Once experts had categorized the problem, they automatically
activated the procedural knowledge needed to solve it and solved in very quickly.
These findings are consistent with research on expertise showing that the first option
experts generate is usually the best one (Klein et al., 1995; Gigerenzer and Goldstein, 1996;
Johnson and Raab, 2003;). Finally, these findings are consistent with the idea that sometimes the
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best action is to pause before a decision is made (Kowalski-Trakofler et al., 2010). Specifically,
in an escape situation, it is important for miners to make sure they are aware of all the available
information before they act. Making sure that all the available information is collected and used
in the decision process is especially important for group leaders in emergency situations.
Research has shown that pausing to assess a situation and gather new information can allow
individuals to come up with the most appropriate response or see a situation in a new way
(Wiley, 1998).
A basic premise of most human-systems integration approaches is that changes in one
part of the system can have an impact on another part of the system. For instance, organizational
demands regarding productivity can impact a miner’s bias for determining whether some
environmental indicator is a sign of a real emergency that requires self-escape or the indicator is
a false alarm. Together, the different parts of a system can often serve to prevent weaknesses in
one part, but sometimes these weaknesses align and adverse events occur. As talked about more
in Chapter 5, this aligning of weaknesses is often referred to as the “Swiss Cheese Model.” The
idea is that when holes in different parts of a system line up, unanticipated adverse events can
occur (see Reason et al., 2001).
Anticipatory Thinking and Heuristics
Successful self-escape also involves flexible or anticipatory thinking. Anticipatory
thinking is the process of imagining unexpected events and how they may affect plans and
practices (Klein, et al., 2010). It is a hallmark of expertise. For instance, expert chess masters are
able to plan out several moves ahead in a game situation, and down several possible move trees,
to determine whether a particular move will be successful (Chase and Simon, 1973). Importantly,
anticipatory thinking is not mere prediction, but involves actively interpreting the environment
for information that might change a potential course of action. For instance, it has been shown
that expert drivers constantly scan the environment for possible hazards in a way that novices do
not (Pradhan et al., 2005).
Anticipatory thinking allows miners to adapt to changing emergency situations by
understanding the consequences of potential decisions and how they need to be altered in the
event of changing factors in the environment. It also allows them to adapt to a situation in which
several factors come together to lead to unpredictable consequences.
Anticipatory thinking, fueled by expertise in self-escape, may also help miners avoid
common mistakes that tend to happen in stressful situations when working memory is
compromised. These potential mistakes may include, but are not limited to, (a) sunk costs, (b)
backup avoidance, and (c) confirmation bias. These thought patterns are also known as
heuristics, short-cut strategies for solving problems, which can either work or not (Sternberg,
2003). Such short-cuts can be especially useful in situations where the decision maker is dealing
with large amounts of information. For example, if a miner has a heuristic for donning an SCSR
that smoke = donning, then there does not need to be time taken or cognitive resources spent on
considering the pros and cons of donning – especially when such time could be used to gather
important information about the emergency situation at hand. However, some heuristics can lead
to poor decisions. We focus on these below as a means to illustrate common decision making
problems.
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Sunk costs occur when a person follows through on a decision initially made even if
there are signs that this decision should be re-evaluated or changed (Thaler, 2000). Making a
commitment pushes people to resist revaluation.
Backup avoidance is when people do not want to consider an option that will take them
father away from their goal at first—even though it may be the best option (Anderson, 2005).
This avoidance may have occurred during the Aracoma Alma mine fire where miners went
forward rather than backwards in an attempt to escape (U.S. Department of Labor, 2007b).
Perhaps considering going backwards to avoid smoke would have been beneficial, similar to how
airline attendants routinely urge passengers to recognize that, in the event of an emergency, the
nearest exit may be behind them.
Confirmation bias involves looking for information that confirms the story a person has
built instead of looking for information that might disconfirm it (Galotti, 2008). People have a
tendency to want to search out meaningful patterns and make sense of experiences and thus they
look for information to confirm their initial predictions and tend to ignore factors that could
disconfirm it. This means that people may be less likely to pay attention to the environment cues
that do not confirm initial assumptions and, as a result, less likely to update erroneous
assumptions. And, in many domains, novices tend to do this more than experts (Lesgold et al.,
1988). A related idea is illusory correlations, where two events occurring together in time are
seen as causally connected even though they are independent (Chapman and Chapman, 1967).
Building on these sorts of mistakes in training and educating miners that they may occur can be a
powerful way to create the knowledge they need to effectively self-escape in a mining
emergency.
COMMUNICATION
Communication is at the heart of behavioral elements that are fundamental to self-
escape, such as organizing, gathering information, decision making, creating group cohesion,
providing guidance, maintaining motivation, and informing and directing effort. This section
discusses communication between escaping miners, and communication between miners
underground and key support personnel on the surface.
Between Miners
As noted in Chapter 3, most escapes occur in groups with miners collecting together to
move to a place of safety. Sometimes the group represents an intact work team or section crew,
but in other situations an escape group is formed by individual miners with varying roles who
happen to be nearby at the time of the emergency. Within any group of miners there could be a
wide range of experience, expertise, knowledge, and ideas. These are resources, held by
members of the escaping group, which should be mobilized to solve the escape problem.
In situations where SCSRs are worn or verbal communications is otherwise prevented,
communication between miners is reduced to rudimentary, non-verbal signals and/or writing
notes. The mining community has developed a series of hand and headlamp signals (Kosmoski
et al., 2012). This approach seems adequate for issuing commands such as evacuate, go this
way, slow down, yes, no, etc.; however it cannot support questions, detailed statements of
information, explanations, or any notion of a conversation. Although this may be marginally
useful for a designated leader, it leaves a poor set of options for followers. Miners are limited in
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their ability to ask questions, relay a particular piece of important information or report any
physical failings. If a miner believes that the group is going in the wrong direction, the choices
are (a) keep silent and moving in what one believes to be the wrong direction, or (b) remove an
SCSR to talk and risk toxic inhalation, (c) leave group and turn in another direction alone
without explanation, or (d) try to communicate with gestures, taps, and mumbles. The miner
might be able to communicate on the tagline by shaking it or by grunting out loud, but this type
of communication is lacking in terms of the richness of information it can convey.
A nonverbal scenario forces an escape group to rely almost exclusively upon the
knowledge and decisions of only one person. Recent research has demonstrated that groups of
individuals working together make the best decisions when there is a high level of collective
intelligence (known as the “c factor” [Woolley et al., 2010]). Collective intelligence is not
strongly related with the maximum intelligence or knowledge of individual group members (i.e.,
with what one person knows) but rather with the ability of a group to communicate (e.g., take
turn in conversations, exchange information). Thus, the ability to communicate within a group of
miners in an emergency situation seems highly beneficial for successful self-escape – especially
when there are changing circumstances that require the re-evaluation of initially chosen options.
When verbal communication and ongoing exchange of information is possible between
miners, the members of the escape group are able to participate in all of the fundamental
behavioral elements of self-escape discussed earlier. Miners will differ in experience and
knowledge, but the resources which exist within the group now can be mobilized. Verbal
communication enables miners to contribute information about a fire or other hazards and the
locations and status of personnel and to suggest courses of action, weigh options, ask questions,
give opinions, sound objections and explain them, and so forth. With verbal ability, what would
otherwise be a collection of individuals now has the potential of becoming an effective escape
team or group. Interventions designed to improve team effectiveness, such as leadership and
followership training, can now be useful. Improving team communication is critical given that
people have an ego-centric bias to think others understand what they have communicated, even
when others do not (Chang et al., 2010). Training that allows miners to develop accurate
communication strategies—verbal and non-verbal—would be an essential component of
successful self-escape.
Between Miners and Surface Personnel
Surface communication centers, the responsible person, and immediate support team can
be a significant resource to miners, particularly when verbal communication is possible.1 As
with the case of communication between miners underground, any constraints on
communications with the surface limit important coordination and information exchange
between the personnel on the surface and underground escape groups.
The surface communication center can play an integral part in the exchange of critical
information from first alert to any time that the escape groups are able make contact. Surface
personnel obtain information from the miners and provide other information back to them. The
information obtained by the responsible person is routed to other surface personnel for decision
1
Texting possibilities exist in the absence of verbal communication that may permit limited text communication
between surface communication centers and miners underground. However, the number of mines with this
capability is relatively few and the speed and depth of communication is limited.
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making with respect to locations, firefighting, aiding escape, and rescue. It will include such
information as locations of the fire and the miners, health status of the miners, availability and
usability of breathing apparatus, presence and density of smoke, and miners’ intentions. Some of
the information obtained from one escape group is also subsequently routed back down to other
groups when they contact the surface for information. The information obtained from the surface
by the miners is used to make decisions such as route choice, wayfinding, the status of other
miners, and entering or not entering a refuge,.
Given that the responsible person and team may need to simultaneously obtain and
provide valid information to disparate groups of miners underground and to other personnel on
the surface under stress and time pressure, it raises issues related to communication, such as:
How should the responsible person support team and its task be structured? How many people
are necessary to do the job? How should they divide their roles? What training should be
provided to them? As these issues are addressed, modifications to current arrangements should
be directed at clarifying roles and simplifying the significant communication responsibilities
which the responsible person carries.
IDENTIFYING SELF-ESCAPE COMPETENCIES
Decision science research has provided insight on the types of information miners might
miss and the common mistakes that may be made in emergency situations (see Box 4-1). This
research has helped identify cognitive competencies necessary for the self-escape task and as
such can inform the development of emergency protocols and training procedures. This section
briefly discusses five critical competencies—detecting hazards, using equipment and technology,
wayfinding, understanding stress, and team functioning. We note, however, that this list of
competencies is drawn from the discussion in this chapter but is notably incomplete. As
discussed in Chapter 3, a full critical incidents analysis and task analysis would be necessary
before a complete list of competencies could be identified.
Detecting Hazards: Miners have to constantly draw distinctions between routine
hazards and those that require self-escape. To do this, miners must have
knowledge of environmental conditions that require self-escape and/or use of
personal protection equipment. Miners also have to understand how biases (e.g.,
an organizational culture that implicitly discourages false alarms or their own lack
of trust in safety equipment) might impact their decision to label something as an
emergency. Miners need to develop a rich knowledge base that allows them to
automatically know which environmental cues mean they should don their
breathing apparatus and what self-escape procedures should be enacted.
Using Equipment and Technology: Miners need to be able to automatically
(without thinking in detail) don breathing apparatus and switch from one to
another. They also have to have very clear expectations for what donning is like.
They have to be able to fluently use other technology relevant for self-escape (this
includes, but is not limited to, communication devices, gas monitors).
Wayfinding: Miners need to have adequate awareness of their environment. This
knowledge includes mental maps of how to get to escapeways, how landmarks
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can help them determine where they are in the mine and how they should travel
out in addition to utilizing current lifeline symbols.
Understanding Stress: Miners need to have awareness of how stress impacts
decision making (e.g., how the brain and body changes in stressful situations) and
the types of decision making mistakes and potential pitfalls that are likely to occur
in mine emergency situations.
Functioning in a Team: The ability to function as an effective member within a
team is also a fundamental competency that emerges in self-escape. Although the
ability to self-escape alone has to be supported, most escapes occur in work
groups. To escape, these work groups must transform themselves into teams in
which members have roles and responsibilities, share the common goal of escape,
share a common mental model or understanding of how an escape team should
function, and work to enable the team to be successful. Toward this end, a team
member must understand the various ways in which one can contribute (e.g.,
providing information to leader or group), when to communicate and when to
listen or encourage others to speak, leadership and followership skills (e.g.,
delegating and accepting tasks), and when to be a leader and when to be a
follower (e.g., situational cues). With respect to working with surface personnel,
communication skills are obviously important (e.g., passing along facts and
flagging opinions as such).
RECOMMENDATION
The findings from research in the field of decision science, which can broadly be defined
as the investigation of decision processes and communication strategies within and across
people, is increasingly recognized as important for understanding human behavior across a
variety of fields. To effectively self-escape in the event of a mine emergency, miners need to
have more than knowledge of their equipment and surroundings; they must also have the
psychological tools to make effective decisions and communicate successfully. Decision science
research helps identify common thinking and reasoning pitfalls that can occur in stressful
situations (see Box 4-1) and also informs the training that miners take part in as a means to
ensure successful self-escape.
RECOMMENDATION 5: The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health
should use current decision science research to inform development of self-escape training,
protocols and materials for training for effective decision making during a mine
emergency. Miners and mine operators should be knowledgeable of typical warning signals
and able to determine if a true emergency exists and decide how to respond appropriately.
All miners should be trained using standard protocols developed for predictable
components of self-escape. This will allow miners to devote adequate attention to
unexpected events and enhance situational awareness.
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BOX 4-1
Examples of Psychological Factors That Can Affect Effective Self-Escape
Optimism bias – The human bias to initially assume that nothing is wrong. In the context of a
mining emergency, this may involve ignoring initial signs of fire or roof falls
Cultural or organizational bias not to false alarm – Tacit pressure from an organization not to
behave as if self-escape is required (e.g., not donning SCSR when environmental cues such as
smoke indicate otherwise because a miner is hesitant to use an expensive piece of equipment).
Compromised thinking and reasoning under stress – The decrease in a person’s cognitive
capacity, the ability to think and reason systematically, which is often compromised under stress.
Recognizing this can aid decision making.
Emotion-driven decision processes – A person’s tendency to allow emotions to dictate
decisions. May result in putting additional people in danger.
Backup avoidance – The tendency to not want to go away from one’s goal. This tendency may
result in miners not considering escape routes that initially take them farther from a place of
safety, but are ultimately the best choice.
Confirmation bias – The tendency to only look for information that confirms what one believes
(e.g., about the cause of an emergency situation) and thus not update one’s notion of what has
happened and what needs to be done to effectively self-escape.
Ego-centric communication bias – One’s bias to assume that others understand what one has
said, even when they have not, which may increase in times of stress.
Sunk costs bias – The tendency to continue following through on a decision initially made even
if there are signs that the decision should be re-evaluated or changed.
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