Saturday, March 27, 2021

Situation Awareness Cycle

20th anniversary and campaign logo - SA cycle

Situation Awareness is depicted as a cycle because the situation and people’s perceptions are constantly changing. This internal cycle continues as long as people are awake. 

situation awareness cycle

Everyone starts with an initial perception of any given situation and then continuously updates it with new information. People gather information through both observation, which includes input from the senses, and communication, which includes face-to-face conversation, written communication, and radio or telephone exchanges. 

Simply paying attention is an important part of maintaining good situation awareness, but even more important is determining what to pay attention to. All perceptions are subject to filtering and focusing: people constantly filter information and shift focus. People also produce a lot of internal inputs such as thoughts about what to do next, stress, memories of similar experiences, fear. Those with more experience in an environment often can more easily filter out distractions and unimportant details and focus on the most salient information.

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