Human Error

Important Definitions

• Error - a generic term to encompass all those occasions in which a planned sequence of mental or physical activities fails to achieve its intended outcome, and when these failures cannot be attributed to the intervention of some chance agency.

• Slips and Lapses - errors which result from some failure in the execution and/or storage stage of an action sequence, regardless of whether or not the plan which guided them was adequate to achieve its objective.

• Mistakes - deficiencies or failures in the judgmental and/or inferential processes involved in the selection of an objective or in the specification of the means to achieve it, irrespective of whether or not the actions directed by this decision-scheme run according to plan.