Does Being Motivated to Avoid Procedural Errors Influence Their Systematicity?

Abstract

Post-completion error (PCE) is a type of procedural error that occurs even when an individual has the knowledge required to perform the task correctly. After performing a ‘task critical’ step a PCE can occur if an individual forgets to perform a required ‘related step’ before starting a new task. Research has demonstrated that PCE is sensitive to external influences. For example, forgetting to collect the original document after making photocopies is more likely if an individual is thinking about ‘other things’ or is interrupted. Two gaming environments were designed to test the systematicity of PCE where participants were actively trying to avoid them. In both experiments a participant’s score was reset to zero if a PCE occurred. Results showed that this penalty did not significantly influence the systematicity of the error within a gaming session. It was also found that the likelihood of PCEs occurring could be predicted by the intrinsic difficulty associated with performing the ‘task critical’ step or by an individual’s ability to accurately remember information relevant to the task. This implies that even when individuals are motivated to avoid PCEs, user performance remains vulnerable to this error type. Within demanding environments, this vulnerability is likely to be more exposed.