C06# ALUMBRADO PÚBLICO
C064 BRAZOS, CRUCETAS Y VARIOS
Chapter Four presents an illustrative case study that describes the process of responding to Police emergencies and supports the argument that sensemaking during ‘routine’ police emergency response work is a distributed cognition activity that is spread across the system, supported by key artefacts. This work is predominantly based on research conducted with Warwickshire and West Midlands Police forces.
Chapter 5: Major incidents
Chapter Five is concerned with the challenges associated with multi-agency sensemaking and coordination during major incidents. The chapter is based on a critical instance case study of the defence of Walham Electricity Substation from rising floodwater July 2007.
Chapter 6: Discussion
This chapter reflects on the findings of the thesis and considers their implications for the future development of sensemaking and distributed cognition theories, as well as for emergency response C2.
2.
Sensemaking and Distributed Cognition
2.1 Overview
Chapter One gave a description of emergency response C2 as a system for detecting, making sense of and resourcing incidents. These systems feature distributed networks of agents that collaborate through artefacts. Consequently, the central question for this thesis is to establish the role of artefacts and collaborative processes in emergency response sensemaking.
Chapter Two introduces the concepts of sensemaking and distributed cognition, which form the theoretical perspectives adopted in this thesis. It explains their complementary nature and suggests how they could be combined to produce a novel approach that describes sensemaking through distributed cognition processes. This approach proposes three perspectives on sensemaking as distributed cognition: making sense with artefacts, making sense through artefacts and making sense through collaboration.
2.2 Sensemaking
2.2.1 Introduction
Sensemaking is conceptualised as the ongoing process by which people identify problems, construct meaning and develop explanations (Weick, 1995). It is thought to build on other cognitive processes – such as problem detection – and initiates and influences adaptive planning and decision-making (Klein et al., 2007; Lin and Klein, 2008). Decision-making addresses the question of what shall we do, whereas sensemaking is thought to be a combination of retrospection and projection that aims to establish what is going on (Landgren, 2005a). Bjørking (2010) sees sensemaking as a process for reducing discord between one’s expectations and the actual development of events. Dervin (2003) characterises this discord as a gap, with sensemaking as the process of recognising and negotiating it. This thesis focuses on how emergency response C2 systems recognise these gaps in understanding and the processes they undertake to negotiate them and thereby normalise the situation.
The key element in sensemaking is thought to be the interplay between alternative interpretations of the situation, based on different combinations of available information (Weick, 1995). The uncertainty surrounding these alternative interpretations may in part indicate the gap as described by Dervin (2003). Similarly, Landgren (2004; 2005b) describes sensemaking as the progressive
clarification of a situation, which involves an iterative process of ‘committed interpretation’, where an individual’s behaviour (actions) influences further sensemaking (and further actions):
“…committed action creates the context for interpretation by narrowing the actors’ focus to a subset of cues in the available information that suggest reasonable justification of those
actions.” (Landgren, 2004, page 91)
In this way, sensemaking is about more than just interpretation, but is instead the study of how people “generate what they interpret” (Weick, 1995). Proponents of sensemaking use the term ‘action’ to mean different things; in Klein (2011) and Landgren’s (2004) discussions of sensemaking during emergency responses, ‘action’ means acting on the situation, whereas in Weick’s (1995) discussions of organisational sensemaking, ‘action’ largely refers to seeking out and interpreting (i.e. acting on) information. Sensemaking may be summarised as a continuous processes used to order reality, to reduce ambiguity and manage the unexpected:
“Sensemaking involves turning circumstances into a situation that is comprehended explicitly in words and that serves as a springboard into action.” (Weick et al., 2005).
Given the uncertain nature of emergency incidents, sensemaking is seen as a central activity within emergency response C2 (Jensen, 2009). Furthermore, Landgren (2005a) notes that situations featuring ambiguity or unexpected events make people’s sensemaking efforts visible, which means that the emergency response domain should provide fertile territory for the study of the phenomena. During emergency response work, action (both physical and interpretative) is intrinsically linked with sensemaking. Responding units are dispatched to the scene of an incident whilst the Call Handler is still gathering and interpreting details; Officers attending the scene will first act to take control of the situation and only then begin the process of establishing what has taken place – “their actions affect the emergency and the emergency affects their future actions” (Landgren, 2007). This description raises the question of where in the emergency response C2 system does sensemaking take place? The design of emergency response networks seem to imply that sensemaking is a centralised function, as information is channelled to central agents (i.e. Controllers), who then allocate the resources that provide the incident responses (cf. Figure 1.6). However, Chapter One described emergency response C2 as a collaborative process involving a wider set of individuals, suggesting both that sensemaking takes place across the network and that it involves collaboration between agents. Chapter One also described major incidents as potentially involving several emergency services – each with their own C2 system, which implies several sensemaking loci.
2.2.2 Schemata
Schemata have been proposed as the basis for sensemaking, offering a means for making comparisons between the current situation and previous experiences, thereby providing structure and guiding subsequent information gathering (Klein et al. 2007; Pirolli and Card, 2005). Schemata have been described as knowledge structures that are based on past experiences (Bartlett, 1932). Taylor and Crocker (1981, cited in Harris, 1994) identified seven functions of schemata; they:
1. Provide a structure against which experience is mapped; 2. Guide information encoding and retrieval;
3. Affect information processing efficiency;
4. Guide the filling of gaps in the available information; 5. Act as templates for problem solving;
6. Enable the evaluation of experience;
7. Enable anticipations of future states, goal setting, planning, and action.
Schemata are thought to help reduce the mental workload associated with making sense of situations by “…providing a ready-made knowledge system for interpreting and storing
information…” (Lord and Foti, 1986, cited in Harris, 1994). The use of a schema means that
sensemaking is concerned with action and interpretation (i.e. fitting data to a schema) rather than the choice of options (Weick, Sutcliffe and Obstfeld, 2005). A key stage in sensemaking is therefore deriving a sufficient understanding of the situation in order to be able to match it to an appropriate schema (Klein et al., 2007).
For some writers, the environment and the objects it contains can shape the way in which cognition is performed (Hutchins, 1995a, 1995b; Zhang and Norman, 1994; Scaife and Rogers, 1996). This approach may be interpreted as presenting a contrast between schemata as ‘internal representations’ and artefacts in the world as ‘external representations’. The role of external representation in cognition can be seen in the observation that the nature of the representation can influence the strategies individuals use to solve problems (Larkin et al., 1980; Chi et al., 1981; Chase and Simon, 1973); for example, changing the layout of a puzzle can make it easier or harder to solve. This perspective also highlights the importance of interactivity in cognition, for example players of Tetris and Scrabble can benefit from being allowed to manipulate and rearrange the playing pieces (Kirsh and Maglio, 1994; Maglio et al., 1999). This points to the need to not simply focus on the arrangement and design of the external representation, but also to consider the nature of the interaction between individuals and artefacts. The manner in which external representations are used to support cognition is the focus of Distributed Cognition, which is discussed in more detail in Section 2.3. The remainder of Section 2.2 reviews two concepts that are related to sensemaking –
naturalistic decision making and situation awareness – before describing three contemporary perspectives on sensemaking.