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Version 10.1 by Mark Neerincx on 2025/09/05 14:10
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Mark Neerincx 6.1 1 = **Situation Awareness** =
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Mark Neerincx 4.2 3 "Situation Awareness is the perception of the elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future" (Endsley, 1995a, p. 36). Situation Awareness (SA) is critical in various domains, particularly in high-stakes environments like aviation, healthcare, and emergency response. It is subdivided into 3 levels of "awareness":
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6 **Level I SA refers to perceptions of elements in the [[environment>>doc:Main.sdf.Environments.WebHome]]**. This includes all data and stimuli that appeal to the 5 senses. Examples of level I SA in trauma resuscitation would include pulse, blood pressure, airway status, and significant injuries.
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9 **Level II SA involves comprehension of level I stimuli**. The trainee builds on the data they acquired during their initial patient assessment, for example, a rapid heart rate and low blood pressure may indicate hypovolemia secondary to ongoing blood loss.
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12 **Level III SA is achieved when a trainee makes projections based on their understanding of Level I and Level II information.** Projection leads to predictions and decision-making about events or actions that may occur or be required in the near future.
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Mark Neerincx 6.3 15 Endsley defines team SA as the degree to which each team member possesses the SA required for his or her responsibilities [1]. SA is vital to individual performance, and team (or shared) SA is critical to good team performance. Team members may have different subgoals in a given trauma resuscitation. **Team SA can be subdivided into 2 types: (1) shared SA, in which team members possess the same SA and (2) complimentary SA, which represents unique, specialty-specific SA necessary for good (combined) team performance** [ref id.] (Fig. 1). **Actionable SA** is  realized by integrating SA-support with decision-support functionalities, so that actions can be initiated and guided efficiently and effectively (e.g., see ASSISTANCE's Chemical Hazard module that displays information about gas distributions, its current and predicted future states , with explicit affordances to set safe approach and evacuation routes [2].
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17 [[Figure 1. Shared Knowledge combined with Complimentary knowledge creates Total team situational awareness>>image:Situational awareness.jpg||alt="Shared knowledge combined with complimentary knowledge creates total team situational awareness" height="206" width="436"]]
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Mark Neerincx 6.1 20 = Knowledge =
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Mark Neerincx 6.6 22 How the environmental states are perceived, understood and predicted are determined by the experience and knowledge of the concerning team member. Humans develop and share **mental models** that support both the interpretation of situational conditions and the activation of appropriate behaviors and decisions (Andrews et al., 2023). This can concern for example the spatial layout ("mental map") of an oil factory, its hazards ("explosive gases"), and the related fire operational procedures (ventilation closure, boundary cooling, ...). Individual team members can have specific skills and expertise for specific tasks or problems (e.g., on the explosion risks of gas combinations, or stability of collapsed buildings). **Transactive Memory Systems (TMS) **have been developed to share "who knows what" within teams, supporting specialized task performances and coordination.  It should be noted that expert knowledge is often **implicit**. For example, team performance can benefit from implicit coordination for both routine and non-routine tasks, which both can be strengthened by transactive memory systems (Marques-Quinteiro et al., 2023). Based on experience, experts develop and apply intuition in the form of **heuristics** (simple, efficient rules of thumb). These heuristics are effective, and can even outperform complex reasoning in uncertain situations, when they are tuned to the current environmental states and regularities (Gigerenzer, 2023).
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Mark Neerincx 8.1 25 **Table 1 **provides an overview of the different concepts of data- and knowledge driven team performance.
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Mark Neerincx 6.6 27 (% style="margin-right:auto" %)
28 |=(% style="width: 170px;" %) Concept |=(% style="width: 639px;" %) Definition / Focus |= Knowledge Type |= Focus Area |= Selected Publication
29 |(% style="width:170px" %)(Shared) Situation Awareness |(% style="width:639px" %)Perception, comprehension, projection of environment—shared across team members and agents |Explicit. Activated Individual or Shared |Perception, cognition, action |Endsley (1995, 2021), Gorman et al. (2006)
30 |(% style="width:170px" %)(Shared) Mental Models|(% style="width:639px" %)Internal structures guiding understanding and action~-~--shared withing teams to coordinate and align behavior (e.g. in Human-Agent teams)|(((
31 Explicit. Stored. Individual or Shared
32 )))|Cognition |Andrews, R. W., Lilly, J. M., Srivastava, D., & Feigh, K. M. (2023). The role of shared mental models in human-AI teams: a theoretical review. //Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science//, //24//(2), 129-175.
33 |(% style="width:170px" %)Transactive Memory System (TMS) |(% style="width:639px" %)Distributed “who knows what” within teams to enable coordination and support specialized task performances|Explicit. Distributed. Stored. |Cognition |Marques-Quinteiro, P., Curral, L., Passos, A. M., & Lewis, K. (2013). And now what do we do? The role of transactive memory systems and task coordination in action teams. //Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice//, //17//(3), 194.
34 |Intuition|Unconscious intelligence based on years of experience that evolved to deal with uncertain and dynamic situations where logic and big data algorithms are of little benefit|Implicit. Often in the form of heuristics.|Perception, cognition, action|Gigerenzer, G. (2023). //The intelligence of intuition//. Cambridge University Press.
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Mark Neerincx 7.1 36 = Evaluation Methods =
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Mark Neerincx 5.1 38 Important **evaluation method**s are the following:
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Tjalling Haije 3.1 40 * **Situational Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT)** is a widely used method by periodically freezing the test use case (e.g., a simulation) and querying participants about the status of the environment. There is also a version (Team SAGAT) for assessing shared situation awareness [3-5].
41 * **Situation Present Assessment Method (SPAM)** measures SA by requiring participants to answer queries about the environment in real time. Team SPAM focuses on real-time queries to multiple team members to assess their collective awareness [5-7].
42 * **Teamwork Situational Awareness Rating Technique (TSART)** is a subjective measure of distributed (team) situation awareness in which team members rate their awareness of other team members’ activities and intentions [8].
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Mark Rinse van Koningsveld 4.1 44
Mark Neerincx 10.1 45 = Implications for SYNERGISE: =
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Mark Rinse van Koningsveld 4.1 47 Enhancing SA is a primary claim for both our drone and sensor interventions. Participants acknowledged that tools like drones can indeed **enhance situation awareness and efficiency**, but **context matters**. In fast-paced scenarios, they favored minimal setup and real-time feeds for immediate SA, whereas in longer operations more detailed analysis was acceptable. Crucially, responders want technology to support their SA //without supplanting their judgment//. Maintaining **human oversight** of autonomous systems was deemed important so that the team’s situational understanding remains aligned with reality.
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51 [1] M.C. Wright, M.R. Endsley. Building shared situation awareness in healthcare settings. doi: [[10.1201/9781315588056-7>>url:http://dx.doi.org/10.1201/9781315588056-7]]
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53 [2] Mioch, T., Sterkenburg, R., Beuker, T., & Neerincx, M. A. (2021). Actionable Situation Awareness: Supporting Team Decisions in Hazardous Situations. In //ISCRAM// (pp. 62-70).
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55 [3] Endsley, M. R. (1995). "Measurement of situation awareness in dynamic systems." //Human Factors//, 37(1), 65-84.
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57 [4] Kaber, D. B., & Endsley, M. R. (1998). Team situation awareness for process control safety and performance. //Process Safety Progress//, //17//(1), 43-48.
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59 [5] Endsley, M. R. (2021). A systematic review and meta-analysis of direct objective measures of situation awareness: A comparison of SAGAT and SPAM. //Human Factors, 63(1)//, 124–150. https:~/~/doi.org/10.1177/0018720819875376
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61 [6] Gorman, J. C., Cooke, N. J., & Winner, J. L. (2006). "Measuring team situation awareness in decentralized command and control environments." //Ergonomics//, 49(12-13), 1312-1325.
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63 [7] Durso, F. T., Truitt, T. R., Hackworth, C. A., Crutchfield, J., Nikolic, D., & Manning, C. A. (1998). "Situation awareness as a predictor of performance for en route air traffic controllers." //Air Traffic Control Quarterly//, 6(1), 1-20.
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65 [8] Salmon, P. M., Stanton, N. A., Walker, G. H., & Jenkins, D. P. (2009). "Distributed situation awareness: Theory, measurement and application to teamwork." Ashgate Publishing.
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67 [9] Endsley, M. R. (1995). Toward a theory of situation awareness in dynamic systems. //Human Factors//, 37(1), 32–64. https:~/~/doi.org/10.1518/00187209577904954