Alarm Parsing Collapse Threshold
Safe clinical intervention is valid only while alarm volume, rate, and complexity remain within human cognitive parsing capacity. Beyond this boundary, intervention becomes non-admissible.
Clinical safety is non-admissible once alarm input exceeds human parsing capacity. Additional signals increase failure probability rather than reduce it.
Alarm streams remain parseable, prioritizable, and actionable within human cognitive limits.
Alarm rate, volume, or complexity exceeds parsing capacity, preventing reliable prioritization and response.
Human cognition: perception, working memory, and decision latency under time pressure.
What the boundary enforces
The Alarm Parsing Collapse Threshold (APCT) is crossed when cumulative alarm input exceeds the clinician’s ability to parse, prioritize, and act before physiological harm accumulates.
Beyond this point, additional alarms reduce safety. The system no longer supports valid intervention.
Cognitive capacity defines admissibility
- Alarm rate (alarms per unit time)
- Alarm concurrency (simultaneous signals)
- Signal complexity and ambiguity
- Decision latency under load
Falsification conditions
- Missed critical alarms during high-volume intervals
- Incorrect prioritization of competing signals
- Delayed intervention beyond safe physiological window
Continuity of responsibility is non-admissible during collapse.
Why current systems break
- Optimization for sensitivity, not interpretability
- False alarms treated as isolated rather than cumulative
- Assumption of recovery after overload
- Continuous responsibility assumption during saturation
Structural consequences
- No actor can act effectively beyond threshold
- More alarms can increase harm
- Responsibility becomes structurally incoherent
Related cognitive collapse regimes
PASS
Alarm input remains within human parsing capacity. Signals are interpretable, prioritized correctly, and acted on within safe time.
FAIL
Alarm overload exceeds cognitive capacity. Safe intervention becomes non-admissible regardless of intent or expertise.
Safety requires parseability.
When signals cannot be parsed, decisions cannot be made. When decisions cannot be made, responsibility and safety are no longer defined.
Published as part of the Edge of Practice. Fixed at publication. Revision requires explicit versioning.