ABSTRACT
This chapter considers situation awareness in terms of some of the process elements that are critical in dynamic, event-driven environments. The initial approach to human-machine sharing, called technology-centred automation has been responsible for a considerable evolution of automated machines. The report indirectly criticises those who have had advisory roles, and indirectly expresses doubt about the overall effectiveness of the approach called human-centred automation. The importance of the consequences has been realised by the military for a long time, but their effect on civilian transport, health and industry activities is only just being realised. Situation awareness is an issue because of human limitations with knowledge generation, sustaining attention, and processing information. The layering of a general exploratory cycle around a core perceptual cycle is one way of describing processes involved in maintaining situation awareness. Viewed retrospectively, it might be thought that problems with situation awareness were almost bound to occur with a technology-centred approach.
