Activity-centered ergonomics

Following Maurice de Montmollin (philosopher and psychologist at the Sorbonne), the French distinguished generally two major trends in ergonomics:

Activity-centered ergonomics uses knowledge from the physiology of labor, cognitive psychology (memory attention, collection learning ...) and the psycho-physiology (alert, posture, working conditions ...), sociology of organizations (distribution of functions, organizations in the chain of command, the string functional, social psychology, linguistics, among others: in fact all sciences relating to man).

It is based on models of the work situation (especially that of Jacques Christol, Jacques Leplat and Gilbert De Terssac) that focus on the difference 'nature' between the task (project record, the field of virtual future) and activity (body – the brain of course) who takes positions and makes movements activates the controls, manages (consciously or not) thought processes, communicate with others, organizes his actions, etc..

The first feature of the analysis of this activity is that the operator "regulates" the activity, according to its external environment, its internal state (e.g. fatigue) to ensure maximum consistency of performance: accelerating the pace of work to catch up with the delay or face an emergency change procedure against poor results ...

The second dominant feature is the concept of compromise between the requirements of performance (explicitly or implicitly always present) and requirements related to compliance with the rules (Security of management, technical, administrative ...). The Observer of the work activity notes'always' that this compromise exists, and it is not built as would the organizations, focusing on the rule prescribed first. The reality is complex, as in everyday life, where we all respect the speed limit on the road ... unless we're afraid of missing our train, or arrive late to an urgent appointment ...

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