"SITUATION AWARENESS" - Say what?

...whose situation awareness are we talking about?: human, sensor, radio, computer or infrastructure?

"Situation Awareness" along with "intuitive design" have become buzz words in the Critical Communications industry. One finds these words a lot these days in marketing brochures, sales talk and presentations at technology tradeshows. Claims are made that one needs to buy Product X or Technology Y because it enhances the situation awareness of either a firefighter at the tactical edge or an utility control room operator in the backend of a system.

SITUATION AWARENESS - "Say what?"

The question is, if someone is using these terms -- "situation awareness" or "intuitive" and "user-friendly" user-interfaces -- for marketing purposes, do they provide any human factors-based measures to back it up. Hard, empirical data that quantifies the supposedly enhanced situation awareness of a mission critical professional who might be on the fireground, or back in the control room of a nuclear power plant?

"nah!" 

Rarely does one hear the details about situation awareness, or SA:

• the process by which it is acquired.
• the nature of SA as a product - 
• i.e., perception of task relevant data; its comprehension towards enhancing the operator's SA of system state (cohorts, teams, commander's intent, condition of the machine agent(s) or system); that is, what they -- the co-worker, team, systems -- are doing? why they are doing what they are doing? (just not information, but an understanding or knowledge of what's going on; Figure 1)
• projection of future states (e.g., estimated time for backup help to arrive; wind direction in a hour from now, of relevance to a wildland firefighter; readiness of trauma care center to receive casualties from an accident site in the next 30 min.)
• the measures or quantification of SA
• what did the operator become aware of which he was not aware of previously?; did he acquire this SA with effort (probed the system), or effortlessly? -- where a Smart System alerted him to the impending danger?  

Figure 1: Task-relevant Data / Information when comprehended turns into knowledge and, thus, enhances operator SA

Varieties of SA

SA certainly is not acquired easily by humans, even if it is in the immediate space or environment due to phenomenon such as inattentional blindness, attentional tunneling, cognitive distraction, or information overload.

Additionally, SA is not the sole dominion of individual humans. Members of a team can have SA about what's going on in the socio-technical system (Shared SA); An individual or team that is geographically distributed can have SA about different aspects of a system (Distributed SA). A machine or system can have SA about what other sub-systems or humans are doing (m2m; machine-to-machine communication), which radios have been registered on a critical comm. wireless network and their locations (Systems SA). Or when human and machine collaborate together to acquire SA, with a tacit acknowledgement that in certain aspects the machine is better than human and vice-versa, then, it would be Joint SA.

Acquisition of SA

To acquire SA of a situation, the following are required:

• Sensor 
• Transducer
• Computer 

As machinistic as the above may sound, it is not necessarily so. The above could very well be a human. For example in the case of a human: An eye or ear is a sensor. The nervous system is a transducer (takes the raw signal -- light or sound -- and converts it into a coded neural signal); the computer is the brain, where the signal is decoded and interpreted. "For example, a police officer on hearing a sound may react with: "Ah! what I heard was a gun shot. My partner should be in trouble!"

A self-driving car, or autonomous vehicle, is an example of a machine acquiring SA, where it may either choose to accelerate or brake at appropriate moments.

The only difference between human and a machine -- both, by the way are intelligent cognitive agents in their own right -- is the former excels in pattern recognition and novel situations; whereas the latter algorithmic thinking approach never tires nor loses vigilance due to monotony or having a hangover!

Three mini case studies: SA obtained and missed

Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

Figure 2: Children being evacuated from the Sandy Hook Elementary School by Connecticut Police

In the second deadliest mass shooting in American history, twenty students, ages 6 and 7, and six adults were killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary school on December 14, 2012.

Figure 3: A graphic depicting the site of the shooting. (CNN)

As soon as the shooting began, 911 began receiving calls. In this incident, teachers and the school custodian, were the eyes and ears ("sensors, transducers and computers") who were instrumental in describing and narrating the gruesome goings-on in Real Time & Real Space. This information thus transmitted via phone, by "humans" ["cognitive computing" at source and onsite], with emotive intonations and ambient sounds, were instrumental in building the SA of for law enforcement.  

In this case, it is hard to imagine if a machine agent could have equalled or surpassed the cognitive computing performed by human agents onsite with regards to facilitating SA acquisition to law enforcement. However, Joint SA, where surveillance video from classrooms along with the human narration of events might have been superior. Note: A human is really good at reading another human's (active shooter) intent.

Verdict: SA Obtained to the extent possible

Asiana Air Crash

A 16-year old girl who survived the crash of an Asiana Flight 214 in San Francisco was tragically killed by "multiple blunt injuries" when she was run over by a rescue vehicle. 

Figure 4: Asiana Crash at SFO in July 2012

This tragic accident was due to the fire engines quickly spraying thousands of gallons of water and foam, which seems to have obscured the driver’s view of a human figure on the tarmac. He was unaware (missed the first step of SA acquisition: sensing and perceiving) of the object/person in his vehicle's path.

Verdict: SA Disabled

Metro North Train Accident

The recent Metro North Train accident on the Hudson Line that resulted in fatalities was found to be travelling almost three times the permitted speed (82 mph instead of less than 30 mph) into a turn. 

Figure 4: Metro-North train from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Terminal, NYC Derailed in the Bronx, via NYT 

Both the driver who allegedly dozed-off and the train (emphasis added) itself were unaware that the train was overspeeding through the turn.  The Driver Alerter, a warning device for keeping the driver awake in the event he was drowsy, was not inside the cab in which the driver was located; nor did the system (train) have a Positive Train Control feature, a track signalling method where the train would have automatically reduced its speed as it approached the curve.  In this case, due to a combination of reasons, the Joint SA (driver + machine/system) was absent, which could be attributed as two major reasons for the accident, among other things.

Verdict: SA Unavailable

Say What to What Next?

SA is acquired by various means in different critical infrastructure domains (public safety, transportation, utilities, etc.).  When a complex socio-technical system is designed, with a number of components -- human agents to machine agents (sensors, radio, telemetry, computers, infrastructure, etc.) -- it is vitally important to set minimum requirements of SA for both human and machine.

Technology vendors should meet the requirements that are dictated by safety, human & system performance requirements under both normal & abnormal situations, and other mandates.  The SA requirements ("needs analysis") have to be identified through either cognitive ethnography or contextual inquiry in the pre-design phase; then, SA specifications set (qualitative and quantitative specifications); and verified through lab and field usability testing, including, live action prototype testing under various equilibrium and non-equilibrium system states (normal to heavy workload to high stakes / high stress situations).

If SITUATION AWARENESS is just used as a "term of art" during design, or as a marketing "buzz word" by a technology vendor, and if we place our trust in it without verification, then it is a great cause of concern. Then our own lack of SA (!) as designers, evaluators and end-users on the important issue of SA needs to be blamed! 

In closing, when a critical infrastructure, socio-technical system is designed, or if a technology vendor makes a claim that their technology enhances Situation Awareness for the first responder or driver, then, it is incumbent on us to verify the following:

• Varieties of SA required for system performance and/or delivered by technology
• Process for acquiring SA 
• SA as 'product' in terms of meeting specifications and fulfilling requirements
• Measurement of SA

The author, Moin Rahman, is a Principal Scientist at HVHF Sciences, LLC. He specializes in:

"Designing systems and solutions for human interactions when stakes are high, moments are fleeting and actions are critical."

For more information, please visit:

http://hvhfsciences.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/moinrahman

HVHF Article Archive: http://hvhfsciences.blogspot.com/

E-mail: hvhf33322@gmail.com

Funnel Cognition: How Macrocognition can inform Successful Adaptations in Competitive Tennis

Megginson (1963) citing Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in the context of business management observed “…it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is best able to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.” This applies equally well when the ecology is no longer the natural habitat of a species but a tennis court on which the competitive tennis player (singles) finds himself at the appointed hour for a duel with his opponent. The tennis player on this occasion encounters a few invariants (personal racket, balls, court dimensions, rules, etc.) but also is confronted with a large number of variables. They range from exogenous variables (e.g., wind speed, crowd support, opponent’s physical & mental states, including his tactics and strategic intent, etc.) to endogenous variables (e.g., one’s own physical and mental states, fluency in execution on that particular day of practiced perceptual-motor skills, among others). Needless to say, the player has to rapidly make sense of these variables and develop strategies to overcome them through adaptations, without any external assistance, as no coaching is permitted in professional tennis. The ultimate goal obviously is to use these adaptations to his advantage to increase his likelihood of winning the match.

The 2013 Wimbledon Finalists Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic who are known to be Deep Thinkers and the most Adaptive Pro's to the Circumstances on the ATP Tour

I will discuss how a player can make such dynamic adaptations, not at the tactical level (e.g., whether to hit a drop shot vis-à-vis a top-spin ground stroke in a particular situation), but at a strategic level – i.e., by utilizing the information contained in the aforesaid variables to make advantageous adjustments. It will be shown that this could be accomplished by building a set of macrocognitive skills, specific to tennis, which are referred to as “funnel cognition” (as opposed to “tunnel cognition.”) This is tantamount to integrating information from a wide range of input variables (akin to the inflow-mouth of a funnel) to develop a hypothesis on current system state, which is a form of pre-kinetic, situation assessment (even before a ball is hit); this would be used to develop a specific strategy that is apropos to the situation on hand (the outflow from the funnel’s stem). Next, during the post-kinetic periods – brief breaks between points, games or sets – the player may reassess the situation again at a macro cognitive level by making suitable assimilations and accommodations (Klein, Moon & Hoffman, 2006) to redefine or refine the strategy. At least two well known approaches from Human Factors sciences – Sensemaking (Weick, 1995) and situated cognition (Suchman, 2007) – used in the context of human-systems design are applicable to sports such as tennis, where the embodied athlete has to solve high level problems without the assistance of an external agent (coach or technology). These formalized approaches and applicability to tennis have received little attention. Most of the analyses, that can be considered cognitive, has been done do develop and hone tactical skills for the kinetic phase in tennis (Teltscher, 2006; Elderton, 2010). It should also be noted that these macrocognitive skills discussed in this talk differ from the microcognitive, perceptual-cognitive skills – centered around direct perception of a projectile (Iacoboni, 2001), its effective anticipation (e.g., Singer, Cauraugh, Chen, Steinberg, Frehlich, 1996) and decision making (Elderton, 2010) – which usually fall under the rubric of “game intelligence” (Stratton, Reilly, Richardson, Williams, 2004) in sports research and literature. The latter have been widely studied by sports psychologists (for a review see Casanova, Oliveira, Williams, Garganta, 2009). Finally, how macrocognitive skills can be formally inculcated to competitive tennis players through methods such as Instance-based Learning Technique (Gonzalez, Lerch, Lebiere, 2003) will be discussed in a future article.

The science of human performance under high stakes and stressful situations discussed in this article shares many characteristics in domains such as first response, warfighting, piloting, emergency medicine, process control in abnormal situations, among others. 

Although, sports does not have life and death implications it can serve as a live laboratory to study cognition and decision making under high stakes and time stress. Knowledge gleaned from this may even contribute to the field of "comparative cognitive engineering."  Ultimately, the this will not only inform sports training and technology, but can also facilitate "antifragile" (cf. Nassim Taleb) approaches to design human-technology interaction in mission critical systems (first response to healthcare). So that the human agents such as first responders, pilots, emergency physicians -- and systems, particularly smart technologies that "learn" in real time -- adapt to stress and even gain from it. Much like an athlete getting stronger from the stressors (real and simulated) imposed on him / her during training and match play. 

REFRENCES

Casanova, F., Oliveira, José, Williams, M., Garganta, J. (2009). Expertise and perceptual-cognitive performance in soccer: a review. Revista Portugesa de Ciências do Desporto, 9(1), 115-122.

Elderton, W. (2010). 21st Century tennis coaching: Learner-centered principles for the game-based approach: manual by Wayne Elderton, available from ACE coach http://www.acecoach.com/main/manuals/

Gonzalez, C., Lerch, J.F., Lebiere, C. (2003). Instance-based learning in dynamic decision making. Cognitive Science, 27(4), 591-635.

Iacoboni, M. (2001). Playing tennis with the cerebellum. Nature Neuroscience, 4(6), 555-556.

Klein, G., Moon, B., & Hoffman, R.R. (2006). Making sense of Sensemaking 2: A macrocognitive model. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 21(5), 88-92.

Megginson, L. (1963). Lessons from Europe for American Business, Southwestern Social Science Quarterly, 44(1), 3-13.

Singer, R.N., Cauragh, J.H., Chen, D., Steinberg, G.M., Frelich, S.G. (1996). Visual search, anticipation, and reactive comparisons between highly-skilled and beginning tennis players. Journal of Applied Sports Psychology, 8(1), 9-26.

Stratton, G., Reilly, T., Richardson, D., Williams, A.M. (2004). Youth soccer: From science to performance. London: Routledge.

Suchman, L. (2007). Human-machine reconfigurations: Plans and situated actions (2nd Ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Teltscher, E. (2006). Keep your strokes, change your game. Tennis Magazine.

Weick, K. (1995). Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

About the author:

Moin Rahman is a Principal Scientist at HVHF Sciences, LLC. 

He specializes in:

"Designing systems and solutions for human interactions when stakes are high, moments are fleeting and actions are critical."

http://hvhfsciences.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/moinrahman 

E-mail: moin.rahman@hvhfsciences.com

Preventing Tragedies in Wildland Fire Fighting

We mourn the loss of 19 of the very best and brave wildland fire fighters, the Granite Mountain Hotshots*, at Yarnell Hill (Prescott), Arizona. As painful as this loss was, it behooves us, the scientific research community, to advance our understanding of fire science and fire fighter human factors to prevent such future tragedies. 

*Hotshots are an elite group of wildland firefighters, with a demanding regimen of physical and fire science training. They carry around 40 - 50 lbs. of gear, food, water, fire shelters, etc., and are dropped-off as a small group, where they fight the fire on their own. For example, they create a fire line, by starving the fire of its fuel (getting rid of brush, dry chaparral, brittle oak brush etc.) to keep the fire from spreading. They have a lookout who observes the wind patterns, weather, progression of fire, etc., on the fireground in real time, to help the firefighters develop their strategy and tactics -- and keep them safe. (A video of the Granite Mountain Hotshots that was filmed in April 2012 is available below this article.)

Started by a lightning strike on Friday, the fire spread to 8,000 acres. (Via NY Times)

Given the nature of the events at Yarnell Hill -- a burnover where the wind radically shifted suddenly and the flames changed direction without warning engulfing the Granite Mountain Hotshots -- posing the following research questions and finding answers may close the gap in our current knowledge on wildland firefighting. Thus enhancing risk assessment, situation awareness and decision making of firefighters and their commanders, supplemented with advances in communication, sensing and computing technologies that truly deliver utility, usability and safety to the crew on the fireground.

• Computational modeling of fire fighting by treating it as a physical & socio-technical complex systems. This complex system will consist of various heterogeneous agents (physical and human) -- fuel source (for the fire), heat intensity, oxygen levels, wind patterns and fire fighters' characteristics (knowledge, skills, abilities, training, physical fitness, cognitive readiness, experience -- i.e., capabilities & limitations). Furthermore, the human / organizational (socio-technical) element will encompass operational strategies and tactics (protocols), equipment and machines.  Thus these various agents produce their own signals and interact with other agents at the boundaries (a.k.a., signal-boundaries of a "dynamic generated systems" in complexity and chaos theory). This modeling may enable the commander and his/her crew to predict in near real time the behavior of the fire and effort/resources needed to starve it off fuel and oxygen to bring it under control; advise received, as needed from a central command center, who develop a macro level situation awareness with computational model providing proactive decision support;

The above picture from AZCentral.com

• Advance research in fire fighter (human) sensemaking, situation awareness and naturalistic decision making of complex scenarios in volatile, high stakes and complex settings to understand the fidelity and validity of situation assessment. Understand how firefighters / commander makes a decision on how to engage or disengage from a fire and how do they perceive risks (loss / gain) and probabilities to inform their decision making in real time.

Note the communication gear, the 2-way radio in front -- and inside the radio pocket -- of the harness on the Fire Jacket. 

(Communication and Computing technology is discussed in the next bullet point)

"Rick Cowell, the 55-year-old superintendent of the Tahoe Hotshots, addressing his crew during the Stafford blaze." *Photographer:* Kyle Dickman  via Outside Magazine

• Signal and imaging technologies (aerial and geospatial sensing and analysis), including command and control (radio communications and computing), that best integrate human and systems to enhance safety. The design of radio communications between the "lookout" and the "hotshots" on the fire ground -- as well as group communications between centralized command & control, lookout and hotshots (shared situation awareness) -- are vital to enhance situation awareness. In other words, comprehend the current conditions, particularly risks and hazards arising due to the fuel source and wind/weather patterns; and, more importantly, project the future trajectory and progression of the fire. Furthermore, the utility and use of large screen, data / computing devices on the fireground for use by the lookout or the hotshot squad leader, where data is fed from ground / aerial sensors (e.g., dropsondes) and video/images from central servers, should be investigated. Even though, this technology may provide valuable thermal and weather intelligence, it also poses the danger of cognitive / attentional tunneling and information overload causing the firefighters to loose situation awareness of dangers in the immediate physical  vicinity.

Thus it is vital to formulate the right research questions, find answers in terms of training and technologies, to prevent future tragedies resulting from volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous factors, time stress -- that are inherent to wild land fire fighting.

Video: Granite Mountain Hotshots

 

This video of the Granite Mountain Hotshots was filmed in April 2012. Chillingly, it shows the crew practicing the deployment of their fire shelters (aluminum foil and silica sacks that reflect radiant heat). Prior to this tragic and wicked conflagration the Prescott Fire Department -Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew had never before been forced to deploy shelters in a fire. The LAST RESORT... Fire shelters have saved the lives of nearly 300 firefighters since 1977. Story credit: Stand with Arizona standwitharizona.com 

Thanks to -- and via -- Brotherhood of Fire 

News Articles

NPR: "19 Firefighters Killed In Ariz. Wildfire Called Deadliest In Decade"

PBS Newshour Video Report:  
Part 1: Ariz. Inferno Kills Elite Firefighters

Part 2: Firefighters Who Perished in Arizona Faced High Heat, 'One of the Hardest' Tasks

AZ Central: Wildfire experts: More than 1 factor spawned Yarnell tragedy

Further Reading:
Outside Magazine, on being a Hotshot: IN THE LINE OF WILDFIRE 

About the author:

Moin Rahman is a Principal Scientist at HVHF Sciences, LLC. He specializes in:

"Designing systems and solutions for human interactions when stakes are high, moments are fleeting and actions are critical."

http://hvhfsciences.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/moinrahman 

E-mail: moin.rahman@hvhfsciences.com