Empirical Study of Shared Situation Awareness between Active and Passive Group-view Displays

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop an active group-view display and evaluate the effectiveness of the prototype to cope with team errors in terms of shared situation awareness. The results of this research provide effective countermeasures that can be used to cope with team errors from the perspective of team communication and contextual situation sharing. To develop the active group-view display, we first investigated hazardous factors that could cause team error based on the team error process; we determined countermeasures to cope with these hazardous factors, validated the countermeasures by scenario-based analysis, developed an active group-view display that adds the function of interaction among operators in nuclear facilities and, finally, validated the effectiveness of the active display in terms of team situational awareness. Based on the team error process, we determined hazardous factors for team error that may occur in the process of using the group-view display. To prevent these hazardous factors, brainstorming with experienced operators is used to establish four countermeasures and three barriers against team error. A laser writing device with the function of pointing and marking information through gestures to the group-view display is proposed. An effectiveness test of team communication and decision making using the active group-view display device is performed using SACRI. The results of the test show a significant difference between active and passive displays. This study suggests that an improved interface using an active group-view display device can be utilized as a countermeasure against team errors. In order to cope with human errors that may occur in a digital control room, it is necessary to prepare countermeasures through systematic analysis of various interfaces such as computer-based procedures, digitalized alarm indicators, and mimic-based displays in nuclear power plants.