ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the importance of situation awareness (SA) in decision making in dynamic environments and the utility of using a model of decision making that takes SA into account. It presents a model of SA, including various mechanisms and factors hypothesized to be important for its generation. As technology has evolved, many complex, dynamic systems have been created that tax the abilities of humans to act as effective, timely decision makers when operating the systems. In a related environment, air traffic controllers are called on to sort out and project the paths of ever-increasing numbers of aircraft in order to ensure goals of minimum separation and safe, efficient landing and takeoff operations. M. Venturino, W. L. Hamilton, and S. R. Dvorchak also found that performance was predicted by a combination of SA and decision making in combat pilots.
