Erik S. Connors

Situation awareness: State of the art

This paper describes active research on situation awareness (SA) as it applies to the power transmission and distribution (T&D) industry. Recent emphases on situation awareness in the power T&D industry have highlighted the lack of SA-related research in this domain. This gap has been recognized by several organizations, leading to the development of new commercial energy management systems, reactive reserve monitoring tools, and visualization systems designed to assist T&D operators in monitoring, predicting, anticipating, and preventing potential problems that could lead to major power outages. The essential element in each of these endeavors is a focused effort on understanding and increasing operator SA in T&D control centers. The power T&D domain presents multiple vantage points upon which operator SA can be improved. The power T&D industry continues to seek a solution to its situation awareness gap. The work described in this paper helps to identify areas where SA needs are lacking within the industry, and provides valuable insights to inform the development of future technology to support SA in the power T&D domain.

The Neocities Simulation: Understanding the Design and Experimental Methodology Used to Develop a Team Emergency Management Simulation

This paper describes the continued development of a scaled-world simulation designed to conduct empirical research on team cognition and decision-making within a distributed environment. The NeoCITIES simulation was created to study decision-making and the impact of hidden knowledge profiles on team performance within a distributed command, control, and communications (C3) setting. NeoCITIES has been designed for the purpose of representing both new and operationally relevant scaled worlds, while emulating the complexities and attributes of emergent decision-making scenarios involving emergent counterterrorism events. Because patterns of activity emerge across time, knowledge is often hidden and disconnected within and across teams. NeoCIITES has been orchestrated to assess and evaluate the extent to which teams can socially construct knowledge while ineteracting through various means of technological support. Specifically, NeoCITIES is an interactive computer program designed to display information pertaining to events and occurrences in a virtual city space. The teams in the simulation represent three separate services (e.g., Police, Fire/EMS, and Hazmat) in which they must assess situations, interact and communicate according to their inter-team and intra-team roles, allocate resources in a timely manner, and make decisions within the context of emergency crisis management. Once NeoCITIES development has been completed, the simulation will be used as an experimental task to measure the impact of hidden knowledge profiles on teamwork and decision-making in the distributed team context.

A Distributed Cognition Simulation Involving Homeland Security and Defense: The Development of Neocities

This paper describes a scaled-world simulation developed to conduct empirical research on team cognition, communication, and decision-making within a distributed environment. The NeoCITIES simulation is an advancement of the CITIES task, which was designed to study group decision-making within a command, control, and communications (C3) setting (Wellens & Ergener, 1988). Studying group decision-making is a two-fold problem involving team cognition and team communication. According to McNeese (2003), team cognition is constructed through distributed and emerging activities via several sources. A majority of studies examining distributed decision-making have involved militaristic, battlefield engagement, or urban warfare settings. In that same spirit, NeoCITIES was designed for emergency crisis management teams undergoing terrorist attacks within a college-town. Thus, NeoCITIES is a new and operationally relevant scaled world that emulates the complexities and emergent decision-making attributes resident in a 9/11-type of terrorist scenario. Through the use of NeoCITIES, we anticipate the assessment of a number of cognitive tools to support distributed cognition (e.g., problem-based decomposition) as well as advancing adaptive intelligent interfaces.

Situation Awareness in the Power Transmission and Distribution Industry

This paper describes active research on situation awareness (SA) as it applies to the power transmission and distribution (T&D) industry. Goal-Directed Task Analysis (GDTA) interviews were conducted with Specialist Reliability Analysis & Operation and Reliability Coordinator/System Operators from two large U.S. power companies to achieve a clear understanding of the power T&D domain. The resulting GDTA and lessons learned are presented.

Using fuzzy cognitive mapping techniques to model situation awareness for army infantry platoon leaders

This paper describes work on the development of an actionable model of situation awareness for Army infantry platoon leaders using fuzzy cognitive mapping techniques. Developing this model based on the formal representation of the platoon leader provided by the Goal-Directed Task Analysis (GDTA) methodology advances current cognitive models because it provides valuable insight on how to effectively support human cognition within the decision-making process. We describe the modeling design approach and discuss validating the model using the VBS2 simulation environment.

An Application of the AKADAM Approach to Intelligence Analyst Work

This paper emphasizes the use of cognitive task analysis to gain significant insight into the unique domain of intelligence analysts, how intelligence analysts view this domain, and how this domain can be replicated in a controlled simulation environment in which innovative tools and procedures can be empirically tested. Details of two comprehensive knowledge elicitation sessions involving intelligence analysts are provided as an example of using the Advanced Knowledge Acquisition and Design (AKADAM) methodology to obtain contextually relevant information for use in developing a homeland defense-oriented simulation/experimental task. Several distinctive characteristics of intelligence analyst functionality were discovered, including the multi-source integration of relevant information, complex cognitive analysis, and team collaboration in decision-making. Additional themes such as social interaction and the limitations of current analysis tools were identified.

A framework for representing agent and human situation awareness

For this paper, we examine the challenges to the formalization of agent SA in the context of human (or traditional) SA and the value added by agent SA. We hypothesize about how an agent can generate and maintain Level 2 and Level 3 SA and how that should be represented internally for the agent. Additionally, we consider the relationship between the human operator and agent to theorize how agent SA impacts human SA and vice versa, such as situations where agent SA is in conflict of human SA. Our examination leads to a theoretical framework of human SA and agent SA that includes identifying how to establish, maintain, and share SA for both entities. This framework is expected to provide insight on how to operationalize agent SA for current and future systems in dynamic work domains.

MULTIPLE VANTAGE POINTS OF THE COMMON OPERATIONAL PICTURE: SUPPORTING INTERNATIONAL TEAMWORK

This paper summarizes multiple perspectives of the common operational picture (COP) in military and civilian crisis management domains viewed from three vantage points: historical, conceptual, and practical. The term COP extends prior research on large group displays to describe a visual representation of tactical, operational, and strategic information intended to generate situation awareness. We present four strata of interest to formulate an innovative conceptual framework of the COP based on user-team needs: structure, representation, processes, and management. This conceptual framework is applied as part of a review of recent and ongoing projects that examines current research gaps in the application of geographic information systems (GIS) to international humanitarian response.

A Baseline Evaluation of Situation Awareness For Electric Power System Operation Supervisors

High levels of situation awareness (SA) are critical for successful power transmission and distribution (T&D) operations. Robust and efficient operations within power T&D require that system operators maintain high levels of situation awareness to fully understand the current state of the complex and dynamically changing power grid system, and to successfully project future system states in order to respond in a timely manner. This paper discusses the results of an evaluation study conducted at an electric power control room facility to form a baseline understanding of the impact that current control room conditions have on system operator SA. An objective measure of operator SA was collected during the study through the use of the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT), which was modified to accommodate the real-time operational demands of the control room. The study also gathered subjective SA measures for the system operator position. The insights gleaned from this analysis can provide guidance when generating recommendations for modifying or redesigning control center displays to support operator situation awareness.

Advances in Modeling Situation Awareness, Decision Making, and Performance in Complex Operational Environments

As organizations continue to evolve and integrate even more advanced information technology capabilities, traditional cognitive models of human performance, both at the individual and team level, must similarly mature in order to flexibly adapt to the challenges faced by teams performing in todays complex operational environments. The overall goal of this panel session will be to highlight advances made in modeling situation awareness, decision making, and performance in a variety of domains and applications. The panelists draw from their varied experiences in academia and industry to offer their commentary on a diverse range of approaches to modeling these complex cognitive processes. The panel also seeks to identify critical areas warranting further investigation.