Distributed Situation Awareness In Teamwork

Having an accurate understanding of what is going on is a key commodity for teams working within military systems. 'Situation awareness' (SA) is the term that is used within human factors circles to describe the level of awareness that operators have of the situation that they are engaged in; it focuses on how operators develop and maintain a sufficient understanding of 'what is going on' in order to achieve success in task performance. Over the past two decades, the construct has become a fundamental theme within the areas of system design and evaluation and has received considerable attention from the human factors research community. Despite this, there is still considerable debate over how SA operates in complex collaborative systems and how SA achievement and maintenance is best supported through system, procedure and interface design. This book focuses on the recently developed concept of distributed situation awareness, which takes a systems perspective on the concept and moves the focus on situation awareness out of the heads of individual operators and on to the overall joint cognitive system consisting of human and technological agents. Situation awareness is viewed as an emergent property of collaborative systems, something that resides in the interaction between elements of the system and not in the heads of individual operators working in that system. The first part of the book presents a comprehensive review and critique of existing SA theory and measurement approaches, following which a novel model for complex collaborative systems, the distributed SA model, and a new modelling procedure, the propositional network approach, are outlined and demonstrated. The next part focuses on real-world applications of the model and modelling procedure, and presents four case studies undertaken in the land warfare, multinational warfare and energy distribution domains. Each case study is described in terms of the domain in question, the methodology employed, and the findings derived in relation to situation awareness theory. The third and final part of the book then concentrates on theoretical development, and uses the academic literature and the findings from the case study applications to validate and extend the distributed SA model described at the beginning of the book. In closing, the utility of the distributed SA model and modeling procedure are outlined and a series of initial guidelines for supporting distributed SA through system design are articulated.

How can we design transport environments that cater to the situation awareness needs of different end-users? This book answers this question by showcasing how state-of-the-art human factors theory and methods can be used to understand how situation awareness differs across drivers, cyclists, motorcyclists, and pedestrians and creates new designs that cater to these diverse situation awareness needs. Written by experts in the field and based on a major program of work funded by the Australian Research Council, this book outlines the distributed situation awareness model and provides practical guidance on how to study situation awareness naturalistically and how to create designs that support, rather than hinder, situation awareness. The book closes by outlining outline a generic framework to support similar applications in other areas, and discusses future applications in areas such as vehicle automation, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity. Features Challenges traditional road safety analysis, design processes and conventions Outlines a novel on-road study methodology for analyzing naturalistic interactions among drivers, cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians Presents a review of state-of-the-art situation awareness theory and methods Provides practical guidance on a series of human factors methods Describes a framework to support the design of transport environments Evaluates new intersection concepts that encompass features designed to prevent collisions at intersections

This book presents the latest developments of Systems Thinking in Practice to the analysis and design of complex sociotechnical systems. The Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST) method is applied to micro, meso and macro systems. Written by experts in the field, this text covers a diverse range of domains, including: automation, aviation, energy grid distribution, military command and control, road and rail transportation, sports, and urban planning. Extensions to the EAST method are presented along with future directions for the approach. Illustrates a contemporary review of the status of Distributed Cognition (DCOG) Presents examples of the application of Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST) method Presents examples of the application of Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST) method Discusses the metrics for the examination of social, task, and information networks Provides comparison of alternative networks with implications for design of DCOG in systems

The objective of Contemporary Research: Models, Methodologies, and Measures in Distributed Team Cognition is to advance knowledge in terms of real-world interactions among information, people, and technologies through explorations and discovery embedded within the research topics covered. Each chapter provides insight, comprehension, and differing yet cogent perspectives to topics relevant within distributed team cognition. Experts present their use of models and frameworks, different approaches to studying distributed team cognition, and new types of measures and indications of successful outcomes. The research topics presented span the continuum of interdisciplinary philosophies, ideas, and concepts that underline research investigation. Features Articulates distributed team cognition principles/constructs within studies, models, methods, and measures Utilizes experimental studies and models as cases to explore new analytical techniques and tools Provides team situation awareness measurement, mental model assessment, conceptual recurrence analysis, quantitative model evaluation, and unobtrusive measures Transforms analytical output from tools/models as a basis for design in collaborative technologies Generates an interdisciplinary approach using multiple methods of inquiry

The ideas of this book originate from the mobile WAVE approach which allowed us, more than a half century ago, to implement citywide heterogeneous computer networks and solve distributed problems on them well before the internet. The invented paradigm evolved into Spatial Grasp Technology and resulted in a European patent and eight books. The volumes covered concrete applications in graph and network theory, defense and social systems, crisis management, simulation of global viruses, gestalt theory, collective robotics, space research, and related concepts. The obtained solutions often exhibited high system qualities like global integrity, distributed awareness, and even consciousness. This current book takes these important characteristics as primary research objectives, together with the theory of patterns covering them all. This book is oriented towards system scientists, application programmers, industry managers, defense and security commanders, and university students (especially those interested in advanced MSc and PhD projects on distributed system management), as well as philosophers, psychologists, and United Nations personnel.

Many different cognitive research approaches have been generated to explore fields of practice where mutual teamwork is present and emergent. Results have shown subtle yet significant findings on how humans actually work together and when they transition from their own individual roles and niches into elements of teamwork and team-to-team work. Fields of Practice and Applied Solutions within Distributed Team Cognition explores the advantages of teams and shows how researchers can obtain a deep understanding of users/teams that are entrenched in a particular field. Interdisciplinary perspectives and transformative intersections are provided. Features Delineates contextual nuances of socio-technical environments as influencers of team cognition Provides quantitative/qualitative perspectives of distributed team cognition by demonstrating in situ interactions Reviews applied teamwork for fields of practice in medicine, cybersecurity, education, aviation, and manufacturing Generates practical examples of distributed work and how cognition develops across teams using technologies Specifies applied solutions through technologies such as robots, agents, games, and social networks

The systems thinking philosophy has become popular in human factors and ergonomics and safety science. These methods are being used to understand and resolve complex societal problems in areas such as transport safety, workplace safety, medication error, disaster management, child abuse, financial crises, terrorism, climate change and public health and wellbeing. This handbook presents practical step-by-step guidance for practitioners and researchers wishing to use these methods to tackle complex problems. Each method includes an example case study which demonstrates how the method can be applied and how the results can be interpreted and translated into practical recommendations. The book presents practical guidance on state-of-the-art systems thinking methods and offers case study applications describing systems thinking methods in novel areas. It explains how to translate the outputs of systems thinking methods in practice and introduces systems thinking with an overview of Human Factors and Ergonomics applications. This book will serve as a great reference for students and engineers in the field of systems engineering, complex systems and the design and development of systems, including ergonomics/human factors and systems engineers, designers, architects, industrial engineers, project management engineers, reliability engineers, risk engineers, software engineers and computer engineers.