A Systems Perspective on Situation Awareness II: Experimental Evaluation of a Modeling & Measurement Technique

We present an empirical evaluation of the utility of a systems perspective on measuring and modeling Situation Awareness (SA) in a laboratory simulation requiring submarine stealth judgments to be made in an uncertain task environment. Applying the model to a comparison of baseline versus perceptually augmented interface conditions revealed that augmentation had both positive and negative effects on SA (improving the consistency with which humans perceptually acquired information, while also increasing regression bias, suggesting that supporting reliable cue perception was accompanied by overly severe assessments made on the basis of these cues). The model was also used as the basis for a post-hoc diagnosis of the factors discriminating high and low performers. These factors were both the consistency of cue perception and the ability to consistently apply task knowledge, rather than the task knowledge per se. These findings help to verify the utility of a systems-oriented approach to measuring and modeling SA in interfacemediated, uncertain environments.