Studying Situation Awareness on a Shoestring Budget

Abstract

Current situation awareness (SA) experiments typically involve large-scale field studies or simulations with industry experts servings as participants. In addition, however, smaller scale approaches to examining SA can allow researchers to focus on specific theoretical questions that would otherwise be cost prohibitive. The benefits of using a microworld approach to examine SA are presented along with a prototype microworld simulation environment demonstrating a novel example approach to evaluating SA via the change blindness paradigm. The latest iteration of this prototype includes a microworld simulation of a simplified nuclear process control intended for examining cognitive aspects of SA with student participants. The pilot study results provide promise for continued use of this microworld approach and further investigation into novel SA evaluation techniques such as change blindness.