Think about when you are driving on a busy highway. How do you know whether it is safe to change lanes? How do you decide whether the driver of that car coming out of a parking lot is going to wait for you to pass before entering traffic? How do you keep track of a reckless driver speeding and zig-zagging through traffic? These questions are all related to the concept of situation awareness.
Situation awareness is particularly important in the military, especially in the Air Force where the tactical environment is rapidly changing. In the mid-1980’s, pilot situation awareness was a hot topic, but exactly what it was and how cockpit designers could help pilots maintain it were not as yet well understood. For that reason, when I was assigned to the Human Engineering Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, I decided to try to fill in the gaps within our knowledge.
Continue reading “How Do People Maintain Situation Awareness in a Dynamic Environment?”
Dr Martin Fracker 