Loren Groff

Maintaining Situational Awareness: The Role of Visual Attention

This study examined the relationship between the UFOV® test (Ball, et al. 1993), and measures of situational awareness (SA) for the purpose of identifying those components of visual attention that are most important in maintaining SA. Situational awareness was assessed using a PC based driving simulator that tests a participants ability to detect and respond to hazardous situations, as well as their knowledge of the locations of other cars. Subtests 2 and 3 of the UFOV test, which assess a participants divided and selective attention ability, were found to be significantly correlated with a participants ability to recognize hazards and recall the location of other cars. The results suggest that the divided and selective attention tasks of the UFOV® test measure abilities that contribute significantly to a persons capacity to maintain situational awareness.

Effects of Experience and Task Relevance on the Ability to Detect Changes in a Real-World Task

The effect of task experience on the allocation of visual attention in a real-world task was investigated by comparing three different experience groups (naive, typical, and expert) on a change detection task. The flicker paradigm, developed by Rensink and colleagues (Perception, 1995), was used to present changes in digital driving images. Change targets were balanced between the categories of vehicles, traffic signs, and objects in the environment. The types of change were balanced between object appearance or disappearance, changes of object position, and changes of object features like color or size. More experienced participants were faster at detecting changes to task relevant objects, and all viewers were faster at detecting changes to the most task relevant details of objects. Results are consistent with a search for task relevant change that is more efficient for experienced viewers due to the use of a schema guided allocation of attention, with the effect of experience being manifest in a more detailed schema.