Distinguishing Three Accounts of Situation Awareness based on their Domains of Origin

Abstract

Review of the literature reveals that different treatments and applications of situation awareness (SA) theories and measures often include reference to, or verification from, specific domains. This leads to the postulate that the application domain from which a conceptualization of SA arises plays a fundamental role in that conceptualization. To test this postulate, we compare SA accounts originating from three different domains -aviation, military command and control, and process control. The comparison of the three SA accounts illustrates that the domain of origin can have significant influence on the fundamental characterization of SA. In particular, the choices for the research paradigm in psychology, cognitive components (e.g., metacognition), orientation of time, and scaling of time can be partly traced back to properties or operator challenges specific to the domains of origin. Our comparison demonstrates that domain properties must be carefully examined for conceptualization and application of the SA notion.