KNOWLEDGE-BASED BEHAVIOUR — Page 168, Lesson 273

I want to walk you through the third category in Rasmussen’s model of human behaviour: Knowledge-based Behaviour. This is the highest level, and it’s where we operate when we’re faced with a completely novel situation — something we’ve never encountered before, and for which we have no stored routine, no rule, and no procedure to fall back on. Let me first set the context by briefly recapping the two lower categories, because the book has already introduced them in Chapter 8, and they’re essential for understanding where knowledge-based behaviour fits. Skill-based behaviour is behaviour that runs off stored routines or motor programmes — things you’ve learned by practice and repetition, and that you can execute without conscious thought. Think of walking, or a pilot making a smooth control input during a well-practised manoeuvre. The book notes a critical point: errors in skill — called Action Slips or Environmental Capture, sometimes grouped as Routine Errors — do not occur in novices. Why? Because novices have to think about each action consciously. Skill-based errors only happen in people with experience. And they’re more likely when you’re preoccupied, tired, or when good conditions have led you to relax your vigilance. Rule-based behaviour is the next level. Here, a routine or procedure has been learned, but unlike skill-based behaviour, it always requires a conscious decision to initiate it. The book gives a great example: if you’re asked to fly from Oxford to Amsterdam, you don’t say “I’ve never done that before, I can’t go.” Instead, you follow the set procedures for correct flight preparation — you reference the correct maps and documents, check the relevant NOTAMs, collate weather information, look up details of the destination aerodrome, and consider customs and immigration regulations. Other examples include following a Terminal Approach Chart before landing, or calling out Search and Rescue agencies. Rule-based behaviours are not only written down; most are stored in your long-term memory — emergency drills, instrument procedures, collision avoidance actions, and many more. Short-term memory is also involved, to maintain an appreciation of the current situation. The book highlights that simulation is used most thoroughly in procedural training, because pilots cannot practise many emergencies whilst actually flying. Some procedures are too complicated to be reliably memorised and must be kept in documentary form, like checklists. Even then, the pilot must retain a basic memory of how to access the correct information, and this must be practised. So the general practice is: learn the immediate actions for an emergency from memory, and complete subsequent actions from the checklist. Now, Knowledge-based Behaviour — represented by the letter K in the model — is what happens when you’re in a situation that is so novel that neither a skill-based routine nor a rule-based procedure applies. You have to consciously analyse the situation, draw on your theoretical understanding of the system, and figure out a solution from first principles. This is the most cognitively demanding level, and it’s where we are most prone to error because we’re working without a pre-learned script. The book’s excerpt ends here, but I want to make sure you understand the key distinction: skill-based is automatic, rule-based is conscious but follows a known procedure, and knowledge-based is conscious problem-solving in a novel situation. As a professional pilot, you will spend most of your time in skill-based and rule-based behaviour, but when something unexpected happens — an unusual system failure, an unfamiliar airspace situation, or a non-standard request from ATC — you may need to shift into knowledge-based mode. That’s where your deep understanding of aircraft systems, aerodynamics, and procedures becomes critical.