title: Investigating industrial investigation: examining the impact of a priori knowledge and tunnel vision education.
abstract: The current study addressed tunnel vision in industrial incident investigation by experimentally testing how a priori information and a human bias (generated via the fundamental attribution error or correspondence bias) affected participants' investigative behavior as well as the effectiveness of a debiasing intervention. Undergraduates and professional investigators engaged in a simulated industrial investigation exercise. We found that participants' judgments were biased by knowledge about the safety history of either a worker or piece of equipment and that a human bias was evident in participants' decision making. However, bias was successfully reduced with "tunnel vision education." Professional investigators demonstrated a greater sophistication in their investigative decision making compared to undergraduates. The similarities and differences between these two populations are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
authors.forename: Carla L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Maclean
authors.forename: C A Elizabeth
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Brimacombe
authors.forename: D Stephen
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Lindsay
mesh_terms: D000062:Accidents, Occupational; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002170:Canada; D015984:Causality; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D055815:Young Adult