Cognitive systems engineering

Cognitive systems engineering (CSE) is an interdisciplinary field that examines the intersection of people, work, and technology, with a particular focus on safety-critical systems. The central tenet of CSE is to treat collections of people and technologies as a single unified entity—called a joint cognitive system (JCS)—capable of performing cognitive work rather than as separate human and technological components. The field was formally established in the early 1980s by Erik Hollnagel and David Woods.

Unlike cognitive engineering, which primarily applies cognitive science to design technological systems that support user cognition, CSE takes a more holistic approach by analyzing how cognition is distributed across entire work systems. This perspective emphasizes understanding the functional relationships between humans and technology in complex operational environments such as air traffic control, medical systems, nuclear power plants, and other high-risk contexts.

CSE draws on theoretical foundations from multiple disciplines including cognitive psychology, cognitive anthropology, systems theory, and ecological psychology. Key intellectual influences include Edwin Hutchins's distributed cognition, James Gibson's ecological theory of visual perception, Ulric Neisser's perceptual cycle, and William Clancey's situated cognition. The field has also been shaped by Jens Rasmussen's work on human error and abstraction hierarchy.

Methodologically, CSE employs techniques such as cognitive task analysis, cognitive work analysis, and work domain analysis to understand how cognition is distributed across human and technological agents. These approaches focus on identifying system constraints and designing for resilience rather than merely preventing errors.