Situation awareness: operationally necessary and scientifically grounded

Abstract

Dekker (Cogn Tech Work, doi: 10.1007/s10111-015-0320-8 , 2015) provides a stilted account of situation awareness (SA) in which it is only (or primarily) used to explain away human error. He ignores the large body of work over the past 25 years that has clearly defined SA, builds a strong foundation of cognitive theory on how it works in the brain, and provides a substantial base of scientifically grounded principles for how to improve SA through improvements in display design, automation, and training (see Endsley and Jones, Designing for situation awareness: an approach to human-centered design, 2nd edn. Taylor and Francis, London, 2012). He also ignores work on human error that delves in detail into the reasons for losses of SA in accidents and uses that knowledge to provide needed system improvements. SA is widely recognized by operators and practitioners across aviation, power systems, emergency management, military, medical, and many other domains as being critical to effective decision making and performance. It is incumbent on the human factors profession to respond to this need with improved systems and approaches for enhancing SA in the difficult and complex worlds where it is so essential.