Measuring situation awareness in complex systems: Comparison of measures study

Situation Awareness (SA) is a distinct critical commodity for teams working in complex industrial systems and its measurement is a key provision in system, procedural and training design efforts. This article describes a study that was undertaken in order to compare three different SA measures (a freeze probe recall approach, a post trial subjective rating approach and a critical incident interview technique) when used to assess participant SA during a military planning task. The results indicate that only the freeze probe recall method produced a statistically significant correlation with performance on the planning task and also that there was no significant correlation between the three methods, which suggests that they were effectively measuring different things during the trials. In conclusion, the findings, whilst raising doubts over the validity of post trial subjective rating and interview-based approaches, offer validation evidence for the use of freeze probe recall approaches to measure SA. The findings are subsequently discussed with regard to their implications for the future measurement of SA in complex collaborative systems

Simulation of Team Cooperation Processes in En-Route Air Traffic Control

Recent increase in air traffic demands makes the role of Air Traffic Control (ATC), which supports safety and efficiency of aviation, more important than ever. As aviation technologies have progressed, automation and computer supports are being introduced in cockpits, but ATC still heavily relies on human expertise of Air Traffic Control Officers (ATCOs). It is therefore necessary to understand ATC tasks from a viewpoint of ATCOsâ cognitive behaviour in order to assess and improve task schemes and training programs for ATC

Computerized System to Enhance Situation Awareness: Key Challenges Associated with the Design, Evaluation, and Extension of a Prototype

ABSTRACT Successful decision making and task execution in emergency management require appropriate levels of situation awareness (SA). This paper proposes an ontology-based model for the design of a computer-based system, Situation Aware Vigilant Emergency Reasoner (SAVER) that supports the individual, shared and team SA of managers in emergency situations. SAVER is evaluated in simulated experiments that demonstrate the improvements in SA performance. The paper provides a complete description of the SAVER design, implementation, evaluation and its proposed extension from a proof-of-concept to a production environment

Shared Beliefs in Operative Teams: A Social Network Analysis

The constructs of shared mental models and situation awareness are highlighted as influential for team processes and team outcomes. In interdependent teams collaborating to solve tasks, social dynamics are likely involved in such processes. The aim of the current analysis was to explore whether there is a relationship between social dynamics and shared beliefs in emergency response teams, using the approach of social network analysis. Data on communication and reliance dynamics in 11 teams was gathered from scenario training sessions. The data was graphed as networks displaying communication and reliance patterns. Communication and reliance, measured both on individual and team level was assessed as predictors of variance for the measured outcome variables of situation awareness and shared mental models. Further, the applicability of social network analysis for investigating social dynamics related to team functions in our sample was evaluated. The analysis revealed strong associations between network density and degree of shared beliefs, on a team level, but did not display significant covariance between communication or reliance networks and shared beliefs on the individual level.Delte mentale modeller og situasjonsbevissthet er sentrale elementer i teamprosesser og har implikasjoner for målbare utfall av teams funksjoner. I team hvor arbeidsmåten preges av gjensidig avhengighet og tett samarbeid, kan underliggende sosial dynamikk trolig påvirke slike prosesser. Denne studien hadde til hensikt å utforske hvorvidt sosial nettverksanalyse kan brukes til å avdekke eventuelle sammenhenger mellom teammedlemmers sosiale samhandling og grad av delte oppfatninger om den aktuelle arbeidssituasjonen. Selvrapporterte mål på kommunikasjon og tillit ble hentet fra scenariobaserte treningsøvelser hos 11 beredskapsteam. Målene ble brukt til å danne grafiske nettverk som avbildet sosial dynamikk på de målte parametrene, for hvert team. Kommunikasjon og tillit ble kartlagt både på individ- og teamnivå. Målene ble brukt som prediktorer for varians i utfallsvariablene delte mentale modeller og situasjonsbevissthet. Videre ble sosial nettverksanalyse evaluert som tilnærming for å kartlegge sosial samhandling knyttet til teamfunksjoner i den gjeldende settingen. Analysen avdekket sammenhenger mellom nettverk med høy tetthet av kommunikasjon og tillit, og delte mentale modeller og situasjonsbevissthet, på teamnivå. Tilsvarende sammenhenger ble ikke funnet på individnivå.Masteroppgave i psykologiMAPSYK33

Distinction entre la compréhension partagée et la conscience situationnelle d'équipe : une revue systématique de littérature

L’assimilation correcte de la compréhension partagée (CP) et la conscience situationnelle d’équipe (CSÉ) est fondamentale au sein des environnements organisationnels. Étant donné leur importance, ces deux notions sont largement abordées dans la littérature. Plusieurs travaux étudient la CSÉ et la CP en profondeur, car elles sont considérées comme des piliers dans le processus de prise de décision. Cependant, il existe un manque de synthèse sur l’évolution de ces notions, ce qui les rend difficiles à cerner et à mettre en oeuvre ou même à développer davantage. Aussi, très peu de ces études ont réfléchi aux différences entre la CP et la CSÉ, ce qui pose la question du choix de l’utilisation pertinente de l’une ou l’autre pour traiter une situation de prise de décision donnée. Ainsi cette étude réalise une revue de littérature systématique pour retracer l’évolution au fil du temps des notions de compréhension partagée et de conscience situationnelle d’équipe et pour montrer notamment en quoi elles se ressemblent et en quoi elles diffèrent. En premier lieu, les principaux auteurs qui ont contribué à l’évolution des deux notions séparément ont été déterminés et leurs principales contributions ont été présentées. Puis une comparaison de la CP et de la CSÉ a été réalisée à travers le croisement des différentes définitions des deux blocs. Ce croisement a eu lieu grâce à l’utilisation des éléments récurrents relevés pendant l’analyse exhaustive qui peut être perçue à l’annexe. La synthèse qui en résulte fournit aux lecteurs une vision sur les points d’accord et de discorde existant dans la littérature concernant la CSÉ et la CP. Ainsi, d’une part, cette recherche vise à combler le manque de littérature qui concerne le schema d’évolution de la CP et la CSÉ et en tire profondément sa pertinence. Et d’autre part, les divergences et similitudes identifiées apportent une valeur ajoutée pour les chercheurs en exposant des pistes de recherche future qui méritent d'être explorées

Information Pooling Bias in Collaborative Cyber Forensics

abstract: Cyber threats are growing in number and sophistication making it important to continually study and improve all dimensions of cyber defense. Human teamwork in cyber defense analysis has been overlooked even though it has been identified as an important predictor of cyber defense performance. Also, to detect advanced forms of threats effective information sharing and collaboration between the cyber defense analysts becomes imperative. Therefore, through this dissertation work, I took a cognitive engineering approach to investigate and improve cyber defense teamwork. The approach involved investigating a plausible team-level bias called the information pooling bias in cyber defense analyst teams conducting the detection task that is part of forensics analysis through human-in-the-loop experimentation. The approach also involved developing agent-based models based on the experimental results to explore the cognitive underpinnings of this bias in human analysts. A prototype collaborative visualization tool was developed by considering the plausible cognitive limitations contributing to the bias to investigate whether a cognitive engineering-driven visualization tool can help mitigate the bias in comparison to off-the-shelf tools. It was found that participant teams conducting the collaborative detection tasks as part of forensics analysis, experience the information pooling bias affecting their performance. Results indicate that cognitive friendly visualizations can help mitigate the effect of this bias in cyber defense analysts. Agent-based modeling produced insights on internal cognitive processes that might be contributing to this bias which could be leveraged in building future visualizations. This work has multiple implications including the development of new knowledge about the science of cyber defense teamwork, a demonstration of the advantage of developing tools using a cognitive engineering approach, a demonstration of the advantage of using a hybrid cognitive engineering methodology to study teams in general and finally, a demonstration of the effect of effective teamwork on cyber defense performance.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Applied Psychology 201

Traveler Centric Trip Planning: A situation-Aware System

Trip planning is a well cited problem for which various solutions have been reported in the literature. This problem has been typically addressed, to a large extent, as a shortest distance path planning problem. In some scenarios, the concept of shortest path is extended to reflect temporal objectives and/or constraints. This work takes an alternative perspective to the trip planning problem in the sense it being situation aware. Thus, allowing multitudes of traveler centric objectives and constraints, as well as aspects of the environment as they pertain to the trip and the traveler. The work in this thesis introduces TSADA (Traveler Situation Awareness and Decision Aid) system. TSADA is designed as a modular system that combines linguistic situation assessment with user-centric decision-making. The trip planning problem is modeled as a graph G. The objective is to find a route with the minimum cost. Both hard and soft objective/attributes are incorporated. Soft objective/attributes such as safety, speed and driving comfortability are described using a linguistic framework and processed using hierarchical fuzzy inference engine. A user centric situation assessment is used to compute feasible routes and map them into route recommendation scheme: recommended, marginally recommended, and not recommended. In this work, we introduce traveler's doctrines concept. This concept is proposed to make the process of situation assessment user centric by being driven by the doctrine that synthesizes the user's specific demands. Hard attributes/objectives, such as the time window and trip monitory allowances, are included in the process of determining the final decision about the trip. We present the underline mathematical formulation for this system and explain the working of the proposed system to achieve optimal performance. Results are introduced to show how the system performs under a wide range of scenarios. The thesis is concluded with a discussion on findings and recommendations for future work