Title: Confirmation Bias within Safety Case Arguments

Author(s): Chris Hobbs

Publication Event: Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth Safety-Critical Systems Symposium, Brighton, UK

Publication Date: 2015-12-30

Resource URL: https://scsc.uk/r864.pdf

Abstract:

The preparation of a Safety Assurance Case has been an integral part of the development of railway systems for many years, being one of the requirements of EN 50129. For automotive systems, ISO 26262 also mandates the creation of a Safety Case. Increasingly, Safety Cases are also being required for the certification of medical devices. Researchers have demonstrated that producing a Safety Case untainted by confirmation bias is extremely difficult, or even impossible. This seriously affects the level of confidence that can be placed in the Safety Case argument. This paper describes the results of an experiment to determine whether the notation used to represent the Safety Case argument influences the structure of that argument.