Cognitive factors mediating situation awareness

Abstract

The six experiments reported in this thesis tested Endsley's (1995) three level theory of perception, comprehension and projection in SA alongside relevant cognitive theories, using a driving hazard perception test (HPT) of both hazard recognition and hazard anticipation as the main dependent measures. Experiments 1 and 2 tested the effects of training and expertise on the HPT, revealing a positive association between hazard anticipation and both SA training and expertise. Experiment 2 revealed a potentially complex relationship between expertise and recognition and anticipation. The effects of training Endsley's (1995) perception and comprehension levels of SA did not appear to be additive as predicted by that theory. Experiments 3 and 4 tested the effects of concurrent freeze probes and real time SA probes on the HPT. This revealed a negative effect of interruption and a positive effect of reorientation (revealing the rationale of the task) associated with the use of a freeze probe, in terms of hazard anticipation. Furthermore, these two effects appear to be mutually cancelling. It was also found that notification of forthcoming online probes does not ameliorate the negative effects of those interruptions in terms of hazard anticipation. Experiments 5 and 6 tested the effects of working memory interference in terms of visual-spatial, phonological and episodic buffer processing on the two HPT measures. This revealed more deleterious effects on hazard recognition associated with visual-spatial and episodic buffer interference than with phonological interference. It is argued that in terms of SA related visual processing during driving Milner and Goodale's (1992) dual pathway theory appears to have more explanatory power than Endsley's (1995) theory of SA