Situational awareness

Situational awareness, sometimes called situation awareness (SA), is the perception of one’s environment and the projections one can make based on those perceptions. Although SA is sometimes thought of as merely observing one’s environment, SA is more in-depth. True SA includes three levels. At the first level, SA requires a perception of the environment. At the second level, it requires a person to understand what the observations about the external environment mean. At the third level, SA requires a person to use observations and understanding to make predictions about what could happen in the near future.

SA helps people make decisions. People use SA in many different fields, including aviation, air traffic control, the military, Information Technology, sports, and medicine. Although the term situational awareness has been used only since the 1980s, people have been employing methods similar to SA for thousands of years to help them make decisions.

Background

Although the idea of SA generally has played an important part in human thought and cognition for nearly all of history, the specific term and its study date to roughly the 1980s. Before SA was an aspect of psychology, however, it was a term used in aviation. Pilots developed this term and used the idea as early as World War II (1939–1945). At that time, pilots began thinking more about maintaining an awareness of everything around them and their expectations for the future based on their observations and ideas.

Years later, psychologists and other researchers began studying SA. Then, the idea spread rapidly into other fields. Fields such as air traffic control soon began using the term and incorporating concepts of SA into their work. In 1988, psychologist Mica Endsley published a paper in which she defined SA as having three levels: perception, comprehension, and prediction. Endsley’s definition of SA became the basis for SA research and implementation in many fields.

Although some researchers have criticized Endsley’s model of SA, it remains the most widely used and accepted model in numerous fields. One of the reasons that SA became such an important idea in the 1980s and 1990s was that technology was innovating numerous fields. People wanted to use technology to help people make decisions. The interfaces and machines that people work with influence how and why they make particular decisions. Researchers wanted to use the concepts of SA to develop technology and interfaces that help people make the best possible decisions.

Overview

SA is used in numerous fields, including aviation, air traffic control, the military, sports, information technology, and medicine. Although SA has slightly different applications for different fields, it is used in similar ways. For example, SA is often used in error analysis. Many of the errors in medicine, aviation, and other fields that use SA occur because of human error. SA helps people understand the errors, and it can help them design systems that will help prevent the same errors in the future. Furthermore, people use SA in multiple fields to improve training, design, teamwork, and automation. Most processes that include or influence human decision-making can be improved with SA. Research supports the idea that improving SA can help improve outcomes when humans are making decisions. For example, researchers have studied computer and other digital interfaces. Humans interact with and make decisions based on these digital interfaces. When digital interfaces are designed with SA in mind, they help people make better decisions.

Although SA is slightly different in each field, it has some constant elements. Time is an important factor in SA. Situations in which SA is required are often those that require people to make quick decisions. For that reason, SA is often focused on the present and the immediate future. Another important factor in SA is dynamics. People who perceive their surroundings should also be perceiving the changes that occur. For example, a nurse should not only observe a patient’s blood pressure but also should compare the blood pressure now to what it was in the past. Understanding the changes in the environment is part of observing the environment. A third important factor in SA is significance. People who observe their surroundings have to be able to understand which facts and details are most significant.

An important distinction researchers make is between having information and having situational awareness. Technology has enabled people in various fields to have large sets of data. Just having data, however, does not equal having SA. Data is one tool people can use to gain SA, but too much data can distract people and cause them to miss important ideas. For example, a doctor working in an emergency room can access a great deal of data about a patient. Having too much data without SA, however, could cause the doctor to miss important trends. Therefore, people who practice SA also need to find the data they need, and they have to be able to draw conclusions from the data and make predictions based on the data.

Measuring SA is another challenge that researchers face. A person’s understanding of their SA can be subjective, and defining exactly what having SA means can be difficult. Therefore, researchers have spent a long time developing ways to more objectively measure SA. In the 1990s, researchers identified one way people measure SA: through the situation awareness global assessment technique (SAGAT). In SAGAT, individuals are tested during simulations that are meant to mirror real life. Then, the simulations are paused while the individuals are tested on their knowledge and SA. Individuals are tested with questions regarding all three levels of SA: their perceptions, conclusions, and predictions. Measuring SA through SAGAT is meant to help individuals understand what they are missing in their SA so they can improve on it in the future. The situation present assessment measure (SPAM) is another way people measure SA. Unlike SAGAT, however, SPAM does not require people to remember specific details. Instead, this method determines response latency to understand whether people know where to find certain information rather than asking them to recall specific pieces of information they learned from the situation.

Some researchers believe that, instead of attempting to measure SA, researchers should focus on measuring behaviors related to SA. Researchers who support this form of measurement believe that SA is difficult to measure on its own, but certain behaviors might help indicate the likelihood of a person having SA. Another problem with measuring SA is that decision-making often comes at critical moments when any type of assessment or questioning would be detrimental. For example, a person who is really fighting in combat cannot stop and consider questions about SA. Instead, that person has to make decisions using SA as quickly as possible.

Although SA is seen as an important factor in making good choices, it is not the only factor that influences decision-making. Good decision-making requires SA, but not all decision-making using SA will provide the desired outcomes. One reason for this is that SA is not the same as long-term memory. Understanding and interpreting a situation is important, but sometimes, decisions also need to be based on information from the past, including past trends or results. Another reason that using SA does not necessarily produce positive results is SA is not the same thing as taking action or even making decisions. People who develop strong SA skills will have better information for making decisions; however, the SA will not make or implement the decisions the person chooses. For example, an airplane pilot could have strong SA but still make a bad decision that leads to a bad outcome. Yet, psychologists do believe that good SA usually leads to better decisions and outcomes, particularly for experienced decision-makers.

SA has been adopted by many different groups and fields, but the theory and use of SA have been criticized for certain shortcomings. Some critics believe that SA itself is a weak theory, and concepts such as attention are sufficient for explaining what happens when people perceive their surroundings. However, since the 1990s, most psychology researchers have agreed that SA is a unique concept that can be used to improve decision-making. A second criticism of SA has been that SA is not a measurable phenomenon. Some researchers believe that SA exists, but it is totally subjective, and it cannot be measured in a way that would be objective or reliable.

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