Mental Effort and Managing Risk

When we are put in a scary situation such as overtaking a car with little margin for error, people in the car stop talking.  We shift our energy from one focus to another.  The control of attention is shared by both rational and arational systems, the conscious and the unconscious both go to work.  Neuroscience tell us that the more we exert energy to attend to something, the more other parts of our system change.  It’s like the use of electricity, it takes more power to heat a room than to light a room.  The more intense the activity, the more energy is needed.  As we become skilled at a task, the less energy is needed, our brain has rewired and created quicker circuits for action.  This is why we require less concentration to do something after repetition, our brain wires in such a way that it becomes quicker and easier.  This is why we can multitask on familiar activities and why new activities are so demanding.

An interesting thing about mind and energy demand is that it can be measured.  Eckhard Hess described the pupil of the eye as the window to the soul.  The pupils are a sensitive indicator of mental effort, they dilate substantially the more effort is required for thinking.  This is quite distinct from emotional arousal.  Hess set up experiments with mental activity with people in a set up like an optician’s examination.  With the person’s head resting on a chin-and-forehead rest, Hess measured pupil dilation with a camera as subjects answered a range of difficult questions or were challenged by word or number puzzles.  Similar experiments were conducted by Daniel Kahneman which confirmed these findings.

So here is your experiment.  Hold your head steady and set up a video camera on a tripod focused on your face.  Next, work on some Rebus puzzles you have not seen before and see how you go.  Review the video and see if anything changed with your pupils.  Why does all this matter?  There are several reasons which relate to the way we manage risk at work, particularly: 
The pressure and expectations placed on newly inducted workers. 

1. Pressure placed on young people. 
2. Mental fatigue before holiday breaks
3. Complacency due to exhaustion before holiday breaks
4. Assumptions about alertness with experienced people and,
5. Effort required for concentration without breaks

When it comes to managing risk, nothing is straight forward.  Managing risk is like mixing a complex cocktail.  If someone has performed a high risk task many times, it is likely that their mind has rewired strongly and made the task easier for them.  They can now do that task and mulitask.  With neuron rewiring and ease, comes complacency and boredom.  With high attention tasks also comes fatigue.  Research by Kahneman shows that fatigue also drives higher risk taking.  Continuous and intense concentration is exhausting but too many interruptions and breaks also causes misdirection and lapses in perception.  The idea is to get the balance right.

A great deal of research has been undertaken on fatigue with Air Traffic Controllers.  Shifts, rosters, rest breaks and periods of concentration have received much attention in an effort to better manage risk, not so in many other industries.

As Christmas approaches work level usually increases as everyone tries to finish off work for the holiday period.  I met some managers recently who had worked for seven days a week, 12 hours a day for the last 5 months and were going to do so right up until Christmas Day. 

Research into solving Rebus puzzles shows that if you can’t solve a puzzle and have a health break of more than 20 minutes, you will solve it more quickly on your second attempt.  If however, the break is too short, it can actually take longer to solve the puzzle than if you had no break at all.  Try this as an experiment for yourself.

The point of this discussion is not about Rebus puzzles but about getting the balance right.  The truth is, the creation of attention and concentration don’t occur by accident, but we know that an accident is often connected to a lack of attention to understanding and managing what it is to be human.

Example Rebus Puzzles