Why Fluid Dynamics Matters for Display Design in Process Control: Commentary on Bennett and Malek

As its name implies, cognitive engineering requires attention to the properties of both human cognition and engineering systems. Bennett and Malek (this issue) have done an exemplary job of investigating properties of human cognition that are pertinent to the design of animated mimic displays for process control systems. In so doing, however, they may have inadvertently overlooked some potentially vital properties of real engineering systems (e.g., how fluid flows in a piping network under normal and, especially, abnormal situations). A closer look at fluid mechanical factors reveals that using animation to depict flow rate will sometimes provide operators with misleading feedback that could negatively affect plant safety.