DOT/FAA/AM 97/13 Distribution of Attention, Situation Awareness, and \X/orkload in a Passive Office of Aviation Medicine Washington, DC 20591 Air Traffic Control Task: Implications for Operational Errors and Automation

A study was conducted to investigate factors underlying operational errors (OEs) in en route air traffic control. Twenty active duty controllers watched recreations of OEs and were asked to report on their situation awareness and workload on two occasions during the recreations. A total of 14 OEs were examined. Responses were analyzed to determine how subjects allocated their attention while viewing the scenarios. While observed patterns probably reflect necessary prioritization schemes, attention strategies identified in this study can be linked to data on factors underlying OEs. Both objective taskload, as indicated by the number of aircraft being controlled, and subjective workload were found to be related to controllers' ability to report situation awareness information. Workload was found to be higher at the time of the OE than at the other stop during the recreation. During high workload, controllers appeared to reduce attention paid to certain aircraft and variables to maintain awareness of more important information. Implications of this research are drawn for potential problems in situation awareness under passive monitoring conditions that may be present if certain forms of automation are introduced in the future air traffic control system. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors thank the controllers and management at the Atlanta Air Route Traffic Control Center for their participation and support of this study, in particular Al Guice for his coordination efforts. In addition, our appreciation is extended to Dennis Rester, of the Civil Aeromedical Institute, for his programming efforts, and to Cindy Fox, also of the Civil Aeromedical Institute, andAshok Sundaram at Texas Tech University, for their assistance in data analysis.