An Application of Cognitive Task Analysis for the Evaluation of Human Performance on Inspection Tasks

인지적 작업분석에 의한 검사작업의 인간 수행도 분석

In a large number of literature on of inspection tasks, one of the most consistent findings is the existence of large and consistent differences among inspectors. It is possible that the individual difference is described by the difference of cognitive skills, because cognitive skills are required more than manual skills in inspection tasks. Therefore, a set of cognitive factors in human information processing may underly human performance in inspection tasks. In this study, a cognitive skill was described as the relative importance of the cognitive factors involved. A hierarchical task analysis and a fuzzy hierarchical analysis were used to represent how the importance of cognitive factors contribute to inspection performance. An experiment was conducted using the computer simulations of PCB inspection tasks. The results revealed that the subject group with better performance showed the importance weights of cognitive factors in the following rank; (attention, perception, judgement, classification, recognition)<(detection)$\ll$(memory). The results of the experiment can serve as a selection criterion for efficient inspection performance and the information of skilled learning for an inspection training program. The usefullness of a hierarchical task analysis and a fuzzy hierarchical task analysis for the analysis of cognitive tasks are also confirmed.