Safe driving requires a mental representation of objects and situational features relevant to the driver's behaviour. This includes the generation of predictions of how the situation will develop in the near future. These processes are summarized under the term "situation awareness" (SA), previously proposed in the aviation domain. By now the cognitive mechanisms underlying situation awareness are far from being understood properly. In this paper we propose a theory that is based on results from studies in language understanding (Kintsch, 1998) and attention (Norman & Shallice, 1986). An experimental procedure is proposed that incorporates separate measures for perception and memory processes. First results from two experiments conducted to prove the efficiency of the procedure are reported. A long term goal is also to develop a procedure that can be used as a tool in the design process of IVIS tasks to assess their effect on the driver's situation awareness. (Author/publisher)
Abstract