A Systematic Review of Empirical Studies on Situation Awareness: Perspectives From the Interaction Among Humans, Machines, and the Task Environment

Abstract

Situational awareness (SA) refers to "knowing what is going on" in a situation. As an essential concept originating in aviation literature approximately 40 years ago, SA has demonstrated significant potential and has since been extended across various fields, leading to a growing body of research. With its expanding application in diverse fields, SA literature has become increasingly fragmented. This study systematically reviews previous empirical studies to provide a structured categorization and comprehensive analysis of SA applications, contributing to the advancement of SA research. Our search identified 2860 empirical studies on SA published between 1975 and 2024, spanning 11 major fields, including aviation, driving, power systems, traffic and transportation, health care and medicine, emergency management, military, training, sport, system autonomy, and network information and communication. We examined the specific characteristics of SA in these fields and, by integrating the characteristics with human factors/ergonomics principles, developed a comprehensive framework. Based on this framework, we categorized the SA research into three groups: the ergonomics-centered group (e.g., aviation), the human-centered group (e.g., sports), and the machine-centered group (e.g., system autonomy). Our findings have the potential to foster collaboration among researchers across diverse fields, facilitating the expansion and integration of SA research through cross-referencing theories, models, and methodologies.