ABSTRACT
Endsley (1995a) used an information processing model as a base for her framework, building an explanation for SA that centers on the use of mental models and pattern matching. She characterized SA as a “snapshot” of the crew member’s awareness of the situation or situation model. Endsley and other researchers have explained that SA leads to the state of awareness and emphasized the temporal aspect in a dynamic situation (Endsley 1995a; Salas et al. 1995). In a different view, SA has been explained as an accessible situation representation that results from ongoing SAs (Sarter and Woods 1995). That is, a person’s state of awareness is based on integrating and updating the knowledge which comes from multiple SAs. This view emphasizes SA as an ongoing cognitive process (Sarter and Woods 1995), as opposed to a state (Endsley 1995a).
