Situation Awareness - Definition

Definition

Although numerous definitions of situational awareness have been proposed, Endsley's definition (1995b), "the perception of 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," is firmly established and widely accepted. While some definitions are specific to the environment from which they were adapted, Endsley's definition is applicable across multiple task domains. Several other definitions have been suggested, generally restating the same themes:

• "accessibility of a comprehensive and coherent situation representation which is continuously being updated in accordance with the results of recurrent situation assessments" (Sarter & Woods, 1991)
• "the combining of new information with existing knowledge in working memory and the development of a composite picture of the situation along with projections of future status and subsequent decisions as to appropriate courses of action to take" (Fracker, 1991b)
• "the continuous extraction of environmental information along with integration of this information with previous knowledge to form a coherent mental picture, and the end use of that mental picture in directing further perception and anticipating future need" (Dominguez, Vidulich, Vogel, & McMillan, 1994)
• "adaptive, externally-directed consciousness that has as its products knowledge about a dynamic task environment and directed action within that environment" (Smith & Hancock, 1995)
• "the ability to maintain a constant, clear mental picture of relevant information and the tactical situation including friendly and threat situations as well as terrain" (Dostal, 2007)
• "knowing what is going on so you can figure out what to do" (Adam, 1983)
• "what you need to know not to be surprised" (Jeannot, Kelly, & Thompson, 2003)
• "keeping track of what is going on around you in a complex, dynamic environment" (Moray, 2005, p. 4)
• The "aim of efficient situation awareness is to keep the operator tightly coupled to the dynamics of the environment" (Moray, 2005, p. 4)
• Situational awareness is a state achieved when information that is qualitatively and quantitatively determined by given configuration as suitable for assumed role is made available to stakeholder by engaging them in to appropriate information exchange patterns. (Sorathia, 2008)