Reactive vs. Cognitive
Routine tasks become “automatized” to borrow a term from the study of human factors. We are at risk for error any time a manual task becomes so common that it is executed with no or very limited cognitive requirement, such as taking your phone to work or shopping with a short list.
You might take offense at the suggestion that you do anything with limited cognitive requirement. Consider driving, specifically steering and braking. These are quite important tasks. They are also so common they’re “automatized” for us… They are “unconscious” actions. Neither term is scientifically accurate, but you get it. They are vitally important AND they are dull. Fact is, steering and braking require our reactive skills rather than cognitive skills.
Don’t mistake
talent
or
knowledge
for
recall
. Heck,
memory
isn’t even the same as
recall
.
Recall
implies the need for a specific bit of information to be plucked from the right synapses at the right moment, given a specific set of circumstances, under stress. When we prescribe the use of forcing functions, no one is calling into question our talents, knowledge, or memory. We are merely acknowledging that some actions are too critical to depend on the fallibility of human recall.
