The Anchoring Effect of Technology in Navigation Teams

Paper i proceeding, 2020

Modern technology revolutionised marine navigation, reducing errors and increasing navigation safety. However, the same technology has been associated with critical accidents and navigators’ errors. On the other hand, expert mariners have proved to manage complex situations, adapting to unforeseen events successfully. To better understand the effects of new technologies and how work is currently done, the Portuguese navy promoted a study about navigation team performance. The results suggest that navigation technology appears to have a strong anchoring effect on team activity. While sensemaking and intuitive judgements complement the shortfalls of the decision support system (DSS), it was found that the combination of high automation influence with lack of coordination leads to a collaborative biased perception of the situation.