When control engineering became cognitive

What happens when control engineering meets human cognition?

This talk traces the moment control engineering stopped being purely technical—and started accounting for how humans actually think, decide and adapt in complex systems.

Using Rasmussen’s work as a turning point, the presentation shows how models like the abstraction hierarchy, decision ladder and SRK framework changed the way engineers understand operator behaviour—not as error, but as rational action shaped by constraints.

For engineers designing control rooms, automation or complex cyber‑physical systems, this session offers a crucial lesson:
you don’t control systems by hardware alone—you control them through human understanding.

A foundational talk for anyone serious about safe and resilient system design.