Situation awareness

Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the understanding of an environment, its elements, and how it changes with respect to time or other factors. Situational awareness is important for effective decision making in many environments. It is formally defined as:

“the perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future”.[1]

An alternative definition is that situation awareness is adaptive, externally-directed consciousness that has as its products knowledge about a dynamic task environment and directed action within that environment. [2]

Situation awareness has been recognized as a critical foundation for successful decision-making across a broad range of situations, many of which involve the protection of human life and property, including law enforcement, aviation, air traffic control, ship navigation,[3] health care,[4] emergency response, military command and control operations, transmission system operators, self defense,[5] and offshore oil and nuclear power plant management.[6]

Inadequate situation awareness has been identified as one of the primary causal factors in accidents attributed to human error.[7][8][9][10] According to Endsley’s situation awareness theory, when someone meets a dangerous situation, he needs an appropriate and a precise decision-making process which include pattern recognition and matching, formation of sophisticated schemata and archetypal knowledge that aids correct decision making.[11]

The formal definition of SA is often described as three ascending levels:

  1. Perception of the elements in the environment,
  2. Comprehension or understanding of the situation, and
  3. Projection of future status.[12]

People with the highest levels of SA have not only perceived the relevant information for their goals and decisions, but are also able to integrate that information to understand its meaning or significance, and are able to project likely or possible future scenarios. These higher levels of SA are critical for proactive decision making in demanding environments.

Three facets of SA have been the focus in research: SA states, SA systems, and SA processes. SA states refers to the actual level of awareness people have of the situation. SA systems refers to technologies that are developed to support SA in many environments. SA processes refers to the updating of SA states, and what guides the moment-to-moment change of SA.[13]

  1. ^ Endsley 1995b, p. 36.
  2. ^ Smith & Hancock 1995, p. 36.
  3. ^ Nullmeyer, R.T., Stella, D., Montijo, G.A., & Harden, S.W. (2005). Human factors in Air Force flight mishaps: Implications for change. Proceedings of the 27th Annual Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conference (paper no. 2260). Arlington, VA: National Training Systems Association.
  4. ^ Schulz, CM; Endsley, MR; Kochs, EF; Gelb, AW; Wagner, KJ (Mar 2013). "Situation Awareness in Anesthesia - Concept and Research". Anesthesiology. 118 (3): 729–42. doi:10.1097/aln.0b013e318280a40f. PMID 23291626.
  5. ^ Blandford, A.; Wong, W. (2004). "Situation awareness in emergency medical dispatch". International Journal of Human–Computer Studies. 61 (4): 421–452. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2003.12.012. Archived from the original on 2023-10-31. Retrieved 2020-09-13.; Gorman, Jamie C.; Cooke, Nancy J.; Winner, Jennifer L. (2006). "Measuring team situation awareness in decentralized command and control environments". Ergonomics. 49 (12–13): 1312–1325. doi:10.1080/00140130600612788. PMID 17008258. S2CID 10879373.
  6. ^ Flin, R. & O'Connor, P. (2001). Applying crew resource management in offshore oil platforms. In E. Salas, C.A. Bowers, & E. Edens (Eds.), Improving teamwork in organization: Applications of resource management training (pp. 217–233). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  7. ^ Hartel, C.E.J., Smith, K., & Prince, C. (1991, April). Defining aircrew coordination: Searching mishaps for meaning. Paper presented at the 6th International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, Columbus, OH.
  8. ^ Merket, D.C., Bergondy, M., & Cuevas-Mesa, H. (1997, March). Making sense out of teamwork errors in complex environments. Paper presented at the 18th Annual Industrial/Organizational-Organizational Behavior Graduate Student Conference, Roanoke, VA.
  9. ^ Endsley, M. R. (1995). A taxonomy of situation awareness errors. In R. Fuller, N. Johnston & N. McDonald (Eds.), Human factors in aviation operations (pp. 287-292). Aldershot, England: Avebury Aviation, Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
  10. ^ Jones, D. G., & Endsley, M. R. (1996). Sources of situation awareness errors in aviation. Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, 67(6), 507-512.
  11. ^ Construction safety and health hazard awareness in Web of Science and Weibo between 1991 and 2021, Safety Science, 152, August 2022, 105790
  12. ^ Endsley, Mica; Jones, Debra (2016-04-19). Designing for Situation Awareness (Second ed.). CRC Press. p. 13. ISBN 978-1-4200-6358-5.
  13. ^ Lundberg, Jonas (16 February 2015). "Situation awareness systems, states and processes: a holistic framework". Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science. 16 (5). Informa UK Limited: 447–473. doi:10.1080/1463922x.2015.1008601. ISSN 1463-922X. S2CID 109500777.