Acquisition Of Situation Awareness Research Articles

Attention allocation in pilots based on climbing and circling mission behavior.

Exploration of changes in eye movement at different flight conditions can enrich scholarly understanding of situation awareness (SA) and inform new scanning behavior training techniques for efficient and effective pilot education. The SA requirements for pilots vary from mission to mission. Eye tracking is often used to analyze various attention allocation and SA acquisition processes at work in different missions. Pilot eye movements were measured during a climbing task and circling task using a cockpit-based simulator. Results of situation awareness rating technique (SART) tests show that there are significant differences between attention processes during climbing versus circling flight tasks. Fixation frequency during climbing is lower than in the circling task. Additionally, saccade frequency and average fixation time in the climbing task are markedly higher than those in the circling task. Wilcoxon test results show that the pilot has a higher fixation count and fixation time during the circling phase in out-view (OV) areas of interest (AOI) than during the climbing phase. Notably, the attention probability is higher in climbing task than in circling task when the current area of fixation (AOF) is in the head-up display (HUD) AOI and the next fixation area is in the instrumentation panel left (IPL); when the current AOF is in the out-view right (OVR) and the next AOF is HUD, the attention probability is higher in climbing task than in circling task; when the current fixation is in the IPL and the next fixation probability is to the out-view left (OVL), the attention probability is higher in task climbing task than in circling task. In terms of the Markov stationary distribution, the Wilcoxon test shows that, when IPL AOI is the area of the maximum probability of fixation in both tasks, the attention probability of HUD AOI and instrumentation panel right (IPR) is higher in climbing task than in circling task. Circling tasks require efficient eye movement patterns accompanied by strict attention distribution, which yields high SA level and flight performance when performed properly. This paper summarizes the attention characteristics at different flight phases and various requirements of different tasks according to pilot eye movement tracking results. Similar activities, as routine training, can enhance the efficiency of a novice pilot's attention distribution.

Cross-task cue utilisation and situational awareness in simulated air traffic control

ObjectiveTo examine the role of cross-task cue utilisation in the acquisition of situational awareness during the initial stages of learning to operate an air traffic control simulation. BackgroundCue-based associations are an important component of situational awareness, a construct that is necessary for skilled process control, where the location, movement, and direction of multiple targets needs to be managed. However, the potential for high levels of situational awareness is difficult to assess in the absence of exposure. Previous research suggests that cross-task cue utilisation predicts the acquisition of feature-event associations that form the basis of situational awareness MethodSixty university students undertook an assessment of cue utilisation in the context of motor vehicle driving and subsequently engaged in an air traffic control simulation task. During the air traffic control simulation task, situational awareness queries were introduced based on the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Test (SAGAT). ResultsThe analyses revealed that participants who demonstrated relatively higher levels of cross-task cue utilisation also demonstrated greater performance on the SAGAT and achieved greater performance during the simulated air traffic control task. ConclusionThe outcomes suggest a relationship between cross-task cue utilisation and situational awareness, particularly at the initial stages of skill acquisition. ApplicationAssessments of cross-task cue utilisation may be used to distinguish the propensity for prospective trainees to acquire the situational awareness necessary for complex, process control tasks such as air traffic control.

Interface de Usuários para o Enriquecimento da Consciência Situacional em Sistemas de Gerenciamento de Emergência

Situational Awareness (SAW) is a concept widely used in areas that require critical decision making, such as in the field of emergency management. SAW is related to the level of perception and understanding that an individual has about real events occurring in complex scenarios, which must be managed by critical systems. Such critical systems require specialized user interfaces (UI) to give operators a dynamic understanding of what is happening in the environment. A challenging issue in the design of SAW-oriented interfaces is to determine how the human-computer interface process can be constructed for SAW enrichment, considering environments with heterogeneous data sources, limitations in data quality, and ever-changing situations. The problem increases when information is subject to uncertainties, which may compromise the situation analysis process. In addition, humans make decisions based on their own understanding of the event, which allied with experience and knowledge can be valuable assets to be used to process situational information about emergencies for the acquisition of SAW. The objective of this work is to demonstrate how to include a SAI-oriented UI in the process of evaluating emergency situations and to present the development of a UI that promotes the management of situational information of emergencies to promote the acquisition of SAW. The results present a specified routine for employing specialized UIs in SAW as part of a situation assessment process, which supports a strong integration between the human operator and other phases of the process, such as quality assessment, data fusion and information visualization , As well as a prototype interface that meets the process. A case study with a critical scenario of a theft event is also presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach

The role of metacognition in the relationship between objective and subjective measures of situation awareness

The present paper is concerned with the relationship between subjective and objective measures of situation awareness (SA) within the context of a realistic command and control (C2) scenario. A 2-day scenario involved a joint military–civilian C2 exercise relating to the (crisis) management of a large event held in a metropolitan area. The role of participants comprised both the acquisition and maintenance of SA of each crisis event and the coordination of an appropriate course of action. Two measures of SA were collected at the end of each day–Situation Awareness Rating Technique (SART) and Quantitative Assessment of Situation Awareness (QUASA). No correlation was found between QUASA confidence and accuracy scores. However, SART SA, SART S(upply) and SART U(nderstanding) scores showed a negative correlation with QUASA accuracy scores. These results are interpreted in light of Koriat et al.'s (Koriat, A., et al., 2008. Information-based and experience-based metacognitive judgement: evidence from subjective confidence. In: J. Dunlosky and R.A. Bjork, eds. Handbook of metamemory and memory. New York: Taylor & Francis, 117–135) framework of information- and experience-based metacognitive judgements and practical implications for the subjective measurement of SA are discussed. SA is a critical real-world concept, yet its measurement remains ambiguous. The relationship between subjective and objective SA measures was examined within the context of a realistic C2 scenario. Using theories of metacognition, unique insights were gained into how subjective SA plays a strategic role in the acquisition of SA.

Representing situation awareness in collaborative systems: A case study in the energy distribution domain

The concept of distributed situation awareness (DSA) is currently receiving increasing attention from the human factors community. This article investigates DSA in a collaborative real-world industrial setting by discussing the results derived from a recent naturalistic study undertaken within the UK energy distribution domain. The results describe the DSA-related information used by the networks of agents involved in the scenarios analysed, the sharing of this information between the agents and the salience of different information elements used. Thus, the structure, quality and content of each network's DSA is discussed, along with the implications for DSA theory. The findings reinforce the notion that when viewing situation awareness (SA) in collaborative systems, it is useful to focus on the coordinated behaviour of the system itself, rather than on the individual as the unit of analysis and suggest that the findings from such assessments can potentially be used to inform system, procedure and training design. SA is a critical commodity for teams working in industrial systems and systems, procedures and training programmes should be designed to facilitate efficient system SA acquisition and maintenance. This article presents approaches for describing and understanding SA during real-world collaborative tasks, the outputs from which can potentially be used to inform system, training programmes and procedure design.

Implementation of a Situation Awareness Assessment Tool for Evaluation of Human–Robot Interfaces

In this paper, we outline a methodology for evaluating the situation awareness (SA) provided by a supervisory interface for an autonomous on-road vehicle. Our goal is to be able to use the evaluations to compare interface designs with respect to how well each facilitates the users' acquisition of SA. We used Endsely's Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) (Endsely, 1988) and developed scenarios and assessment questions appropriate for supervisors of autonomous on-road driving vehicles. We describe the results of two experiments used to refine our SA assessment implementation. In a third experiment, we applied the refined implementation to a graphical user interface we developed to test the sensitivity of our SAGAT implementation. We discuss the results of this experiment and implications for applying the SAGAT methodology to supervisory user interfaces for autonomous vehicles.