Reduced processing decision support for competent firefighters

Decision support systems have been proposed as a means of extending the information processing capabilities of less experienced operators by reducing the amount of information to be processed at a given point in time. Conducted in a firefighting context, the current study examined whether the decision-making performance of inexperienced Incident Commanders could be improved with the use of three decision support systems that differed in their demands for information processing. Although the results revealed that the implementation of a reduced processing strategy was associated with a reduction in decision time, the decision accuracy of the inexperienced Incident Commanders did not approach the decision accuracy of the experienced Incident Commanders. The evidence suggests that experienced Incident Commanders were acquiring features that were more relevant to the decision-task. These results highlight some of the limitations to the implementation of decision support systems. Mechanisms may be needed to ensure that less experienced operators are processing relevant information when using reduced processing interfaces.