Situation awareness: Understanding dynamic environments

Objective: We present a snapshot of the work on situation awareness, which involves operators' comprehension of the dynamic situation that they are monitoring or controlling. Background: Although human factors has always been concerned with helping the operator in his or her work environment, research exploded in the mid-1990s on one relevant construct, situation awareness. Method: We discuss how a distinction present years ago, the product of comprehension versus the process of comprehension, not only continues today but characterizes different research directions. Research on situation awareness has benefited and can continue to benefit from an analogy to the better understood comprehension of narrative and expository text, although such an analogy between text and dynamic environments will ultimately have limits. Results: Situation awareness as a notion that organizes and focuses research efforts has rightfully spread to research in virtually every industrial domain, and it is an essential part of work on automation and design. Conclusion: Work on situation awareness has had a ubiquitous influence on cognitive engineering and has even pushed the envelope of basic cognitive psychology into dynamic domains. Application: Considering situation awareness is also important in cognitive ergonomic issues relevant to training, teamwork, and the design of new human-technical systems.