Situational Awareness Display Research Articles

Mitigating the Costs of Spatial Transformations With a Situation Awareness Augmented Reality Display: Assistance for the Joint Terminal Attack Controller 3-17.

Evaluate and model the advantage of a situation awareness (SA) supported by an augmented reality (AR) display for the ground-based joint terminal attack Controller (JTAC), in judging and describing the spatial relations between objects in a hostile zone. The accurate world-referenced description of relative locations of surface objects, when viewed from an oblique slant angle (aircraft, observation post) is hindered by (1) the compression of the visual scene, amplified at a lower slang angle, (2) the need for mental rotation, when viewed from a non-northerly orientation. Participants viewed a virtual reality (VR)-simulated four-object scene from either of two slant angles, at each of four compass orientations, either unaided, or aided by an AR head-mounted display (AR-HMD), depicting the scene from a top-down (avoiding compression) and north-up (avoiding mental rotation) perspective. They described the geographical layout of four objects within the display. Compared with the control condition, that condition supported by the north-up SA display shortened the description time, particularly on non-northerly orientations (9 s, 30% benefit), and improved the accuracy of description, particularly for the more compressed scene (lower slant angle), as fit by a simple computational model. The SA display provides large, significant benefits to this critical phase of ground-air communications in managing an attack-as predicted by the task analysis of the JTAC. Results impact the design of the AR-HMD to support combat ground-air communications and illustrate the magnitude by which basic cognitive principles "scale up" to realistically simulated real-world tasks such as search and rescue.

Using a Situational Awareness Display to Improve Rider Trust and Comfort with an AV Taxi

There is evidence that a significant portion of the population does not trust automated vehicles (AV). Research on trust in automation suggests that providing insight into how automation functions via a situational awareness (SA) display improves trust. However, it is unclear how much information is needed to build trust. A study was conducted to evaluate what amount of information improves passenger trust with an AV. After a ride in a simulated AV with one of four SA displays with varying amounts of information or no SA display, participants completed questions about trust and comfort. In addition, participants completed a card sorting task to determine what content they desired to see on the SA display. Our conclusions suggests that an SA display engenders trust and comfort. However, such a display should present a low amount of information. A possible explanation is that high information density displays might be more difficult for participants to interpret.

In Memoriam

In Memoriam

Healthcare providers’ perceptions of a situational awareness display for emergency department resuscitation: a simulation qualitative study

Emergency resuscitation of critically ill patients can challenge team communication and situational awareness. Tools facilitating team performance may enhance patient safety. To determine resuscitation team members' perceptions of the Situational Awareness Display's utility. We conducted focus groups with healthcare providers during Situational Awareness Display development. After simulations assessing the display, we conducted debriefs with participants. Dual site tertiary care level 1 trauma centre in Ottawa, Canada. We recruited by email physicians, nurses and respiratory therapist. Situational Awareness Display, a visual cognitive aid that provides key clinical information to enhance resuscitation team communication and situational awareness. Themes emerging from focus groups and simulation debriefs. Three reviewers independently coded and analysed transcripts using content qualitative analysis. We recruited a total of 33 participants in two focus groups (n = 20) and six simulation debriefs with three 4-5 member teams (n = 13). Majority of participants (10/13) strongly endorsed the Situational Awareness Display's utility in simulation (very or extremely useful). Focus groups and debrief themes included improved perception of patient data, comprehension of context and ability to project to future decisions. Participants described potentially positive and negative impacts on patient safety and positive impacts on provider performance and team communication. Participants expressed a need for easy data entry incorporated into clinical workflow and training on how to use the display. Emergency resuscitation team participants felt the Situational Awareness Display has potential to improve provider performance, team communication and situational awareness, ultimately enhancing quality of care.

Anticipating a Rare Event Utilizing Forecast Anomalies and a Situational Awareness Display: The Western U.S. Storms of 18–23 January 2010

From 18 January to 23 January 2010, a series of winter storms impacted the western United States. During this period, a record-setting system produced severe convection, high winds, and heavy rain and snow on 21–22 January. The severe weather included tornadoes in California and gusts in excess of 40 m s−1 associated with an intense squall line affecting southeast California and Arizona. One of the primary impacts of the storms was a heavy precipitation event across Arizona. Rainfall amounts of 125–250 mm were recorded along the Mogollon Rim in central Arizona, while higher elevations in northern Arizona received 100–150 cm of snow, with one site setting the state's 24-h snowfall record. The heavy snow and high winds resulted in widespread power outages and paralyzed travel across portions of northern Arizona. All-time minimum pressure records were set across a large portion of the western United States from Oregon to Arizona. This was an extraordinary event that was well predicted. Standardized anomalies...

Effect of Icon Affiliation and Distance Moved on Detection of Icon Position Change on a Situation Awareness Display

Continuous gradual change is often difficult to detect, although it may be easy to detect the difference between the initial and end state if directly compared. Two experiments examined people's ability to detect gradual changes in icon position on a situation awareness map. People observed sequences of icon moves that consisted of ten .9-mm colinear moves or five 8.75-mm colinear moves and reported when they noticed a change. The relatively small moves were less likely to be detected than the relatively large moves; however, an entire sequence of the .9 mm moves was rarely missed. Green icon moves were significantly less likely to be detected than blue or yellow icon moves. This may have been due to the stimulus features of the icons or those features in interaction with the map background. Various methods that might assist icon change detection are discussed.

Detection of Icon Appearance and Disappearance on a Digital Situation Awareness Display

The potential for change detection failure during the monitoring of a military digital situation awareness map was investigated. Participants were asked to monitor the map for icon appearance or disappearance. A change accompanied by two other changes was detected 69.3% of the time, while the same change occurring alone was detected 79.6% of the time. When three changes occurred simultaneously, all three were detected only 37% of the time. Detection of icon appearance was superior to detection of icon disappearance, as might be expected from the literature on visual attention. The discussion addresses the need to represent change explicitly in such systems and suggests properties that a change detection aid should possess.

Situational Awareness in Map Displays

The effectiveness of ego-centered (moving map) and earth-centered (moving plane) displays was studied with subjects monitoring an animated aircraft situational awareness display. Other independent variables were subject experience (aircrew vs non-aircrew) and path complexity (straight vs turning). Periodically, the display blanked and probe questions were asked concerning the relationship of the aircraft to the simulated world. Questions included judgements about angles, distances, time and terrain. Simple paths elicited a 28 percent lower error rate than did complex paths. Moving map displays had a 32 percent lower error rate than moving plane displays. No other significant effects were observed. Subjective ratings by subjects after the experiment revealed unanimous preference for the moving plane display and that the moving plane condition was believed to be easier! This contradiction indicates subjective data is limited in determining display effectiveness.