DETECTION OF EVERYDAY ERRORS

Although the study of errors has made an important contribution to our understanding of human action, the evaluation of action and the detec tion of slips have been largely ignored in psychology. In this paper, I examine the many ways in which errors were detected in a corpus of n early 600 everyday slips and mistakes collected in a diary study. Usin g this collection, I propose a theoretical taxonomy of detection modes which aims broadly to describe the ways in which people realise their own errors in a wide variety of everyday tasks. The errors range from slips at the sensorimotor level, to memory lapses, to errors in judge ment. The result is a general, descriptive framework within which to d escribe a range of detection mechanisms falling into three broad categ ories: Action-based detection, Outcome-based detection, and detection through Limiting Functions. The relation of type of error to detection mode, reasons for detection failure, and practical implications of th e research are also discussed.