Training for
Situation Awareness:
What? How?
By: Jack M.
Feldman, Ph.D.
Note:
Born and raised in Chicago, the author received his Ph.D. in social
and industrial psychology from the University of Illinois in 1972.
He is a professor of psychology at the Georgia Institute of
Technology, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and
a Charter Fellow of the American Psychological Society. His research
focuses on processes of human judgment and decision-making, both
theoretical and applied. A student of self-defense since 1997, he
has made up for lost time by training with a number of exceptional
instructors, none of whom bears any responsibility for deficiencies
in his performance. He is an active competitor and safety officer in
IDPA, a charter member of the Polite Society, and an NTI participant
since 2001.
Thanks to Drs.
Larry James and Martin Topper for helpful comments on an earlier
draft of this article. Responsibility for any errors rests entirely
with the author.
“It ain’t
what you don’t know that gets you in trouble.
It’s what you know that just ain’t so.”
Artimus Ward
The Nature of
Situation Awareness
“Situation
awareness” (SA) is taught, researched, and debated in every field of
human activity that involves risk: aviation, combat, medicine,
hazardous systems operation, law enforcement—and self-defense (see,
e.g. Endsley, 1995; Endsley & Bolstad, 1994; Endsley & Kiris, 1995;
Gonzalez, 2004; Marsh, 2000). It has been defined in detail (“…the
perception of the elements in [one’s] environment, within a
volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning,
and the projecting of their status in the near future.”
Endsley, 1995, p. 36, emphasis added.) It has also been defined
simply (“…paying attention to your surroundings…” Gonzalez, 2004).
However, to the best of my knowledge, nobody has applied
research-based knowledge to the self-defense problems of ordinary
citizens. Neither has anyone tried to link more recent research on
“intuitive awareness” with SA research and practice in anything but
a casual way. The use (or non-use) of intuition, defined as
“thoughts and preferences that come to mind quickly and without much
reflection” or “gut responses” is of major interest to law
enforcement (National Institute of Justice, 2004), public safety
(Klein, 1998), and medicine (King & Appleton, 1997.) Discussion of
intuitive factors in self-defense, however, has been largely
anecdotal (e.g. deBecker, 1997). Specifically absent has been any
consideration of how to train or practice “intuition,” as separate
from consciously processed lists of danger signals, for instance
discussion of Cooper’s “color codes” (e.g. Givens, undated a & b).
While informative, they do not tell us how to acquire or use
information that may come to us, and be signaled by, processes that
are nonconscious, unintentional, nonverbal, relatively effortless,
fast, and that operate in parallel with conscious awareness (see,
e.g., Bargh, 1994). While often labeled “instinctive,” these
automatic responses are most certainly learned.
For the
present, I will adopt Endsley’s (1995) definition, which supports
the point that “awareness” is about understanding in the service of
effective action. I assume an intimate and dynamic connection
between awareness, goals, and action. Though my primary focus is on
attention and comprehension, this assumption should be kept in mind.
(Martin Topper, personal communication.) I also make another useful
assumption: that the distinction between SA as a conscious,
controlled, volitional, effortful process and “intuition” as
discussed above is more apparent than real and that in fact both
stem from the same sources, operating in complementary ways. This
perspective, which both contrasts and unifies “controlled” and
“automatic” (intuitive or implicit) processing, is fundamental to
many areas of modern psychology (see Bargh, 1994; Feldman Barrett,
Tugade, & Engle, 2004; Slovic, Finucane, Peters, & MacGregor, 2002).
Adopting this
perspective highlights the idea that awareness need not be
conscious, and indeed the capability for consciousness is not a
prerequisite either for SA or for effective action. Anyone observing
predators and prey (whether, say, zebras and lions or squirrels and
housecats) can testify to the high level of awareness any creature
must have in order to survive for any length of time. Regardless of
sensory adaptation or neurological readiness, learning plays a
critical role in its development. Conscious SA may provide detailed
information (“There’s a man wearing a jacket standing near my car,
and it’s 2 a.m. in Miami on August 10.”) Intuitive SA may provide
only a feeling of apprehension, directing one’s conscious attention
(see Givens, undated a & b). However, both are based on knowledge,
whose structure and accessibility are crucial to its usefulness.
The Sources of
Situation Awareness
There is no
such thing as “awareness” in the absence of knowledge. That is, SA
depends on a “mental model” (Endsley, 2000) of situations and
people, a model which may or may not be fully correct. Implicit
responses likewise depend on knowledge; even if that “knowledge”
cannot be verbalized, it is no less systematic and no less real. It
may have been learned unconsciously, or before one had language with
which to express it (see, for instance, Frensch & Runger, 2003;
Katkin, Wiens, and Oman, 2001), but it functions as knowledge
nevertheless. Awareness is awareness of something, and what that
“thing” is depends on our knowledge of the world. If our knowledge
is objectively incorrect, (as in “someone so nice couldn’t be a
rapist,” c.f. deBecker, 1997), our “awareness” is, too, but it is no
less subjectively real.
If SA depends
on either explicit or implicit knowledge, it stands to reason that
the amount and structure of that knowledge matters—and it does.
Expertise in any area consists of a vast amount of specific
information, organized and interrelated around general principles.
This is what lets the expert marksman automatically adjust the point
of aim when shooting up- or downhill, without consciously reviewing
the principles governing the bullet’s trajectory, while the novice
is trying to remember a rule. It is what lets the chess grandmaster
perceive, not analyze, patterns on the chessboard, and quickly
project moves and countermoves. The very same processes allow rapid,
decisive action in life-or-death situations (see, e.g., Klein, 1998)
whether or not one is consciously aware of the source of one’s
intuitive feeling of apprehension. In fact, it is not even necessary
for emotional responses to be consciously experienced for them to
influence judgments and behavior (Winkielman & Berrige, 2004).
Sometimes we don’t “know” (consciously) what we know.
It is also
necessary to point out, though, that “knowing,” whether conscious or
not, whether emotional or verbal, is much more variable and
context-dependent than it seems to be. The patterns of association
that govern our interpretations of, and emotional responses to, the
world can influence us to a greater or lesser degree, depending on
“accessibility,” the degree to which a concept is likely to be
activated and used. Accessibility, in turn, depends on a number of
factors: Expertise, already discussed, involves a great deal of
elaborated knowledge and considerable emotional investment. It
produces high, and chronic, accessibility of relevant concepts.
Ideology and value systems act likewise, with perhaps greater
emotional investment. Operative motives like hunger, fear,
affection, or achievement, when active, render concepts associated
with them more accessible, and if the motive is chronic, the
concept’s accessibility is too. Recent use of a concept (for example
“danger,” caused by reading a news story about terrorism or robbery)
makes it temporarily accessible, and experiencing any emotional
state also makes emotionally compatible concepts temporarily
accessible.
Why does this
matter? Because if and when one encounters a situation that offers
multiple cues as to its meaning and consequences, those that are
relevant to (“diagnostic of “) our accessible concepts tend to be
noticed more easily, and the situation tends to be interpreted in
terms of that concept rather than another, perhaps equally valid,
one. In other words, we experience the world (at least in part) in
terms of that which we are ready to experience. This process is not
deliberate, not open to consciousness, is controllable only with
deliberate effort, and sometimes not then (for a general review, see
Bargh, 1994). It happens with respect to our knowledge and our
prejudices, positive or negative, alike (See, for instance, Amodio,
et al., 2004; Blair, 2002; Levy, Stark, & Squire, 2004). Our
“situational awareness,” then, whether implicit or explicit, depends
on knowledge, values, current motives, emotional states, arousal,
recent experiences, expectations, fatigue and other physical
factors, and many other variables.
It is
definitely true that strong signals from the environment, cues that
stand out sharply from the background, can draw attention, activate
motives and knowledge, thereby directing perception. However, one
can miss even very prominent and unusual events happening before
one’s eyes when active goals lead attention to be fixed elsewhere.
Imagine paying close attention to a video of people playing with a
basketball and being told later that a gorilla walked among the
players—a gorilla you didn’t see. It sounds impossible, but it has
happened in more than one experiment. Imagine talking to someone on
the street, being momentarily distracted, and then resuming the
conversation, not noticing that you’re now talking to a different
person. That has happened, too. (Mack, 2003; Simon & Chabris, 1999).
The first is called “inattentional blindness,” the second, “change
blindness.” The good news, though, is that even without awareness of
specifics, implicit processes can signal us—if we are sensitive
enough to notice them (Rensink, 2004).
Situation
Awareness and the Armed Citizen
Having some
understanding of the nature and origin of situation awareness, we
now turn to understanding its role in self-defense. Conscious SA is
studied in contexts like aviation safety and military operations;
intuitive or implicit SA is only beginning to be studied in domains
such as medicine and law enforcement. There has been no research in
the area of self-defense for the ordinary citizen. How, then, are we
to evaluate and apply the knowledge we have, let alone acquire new
information? We need to start by understanding the differences
between the professional’s situation and the layperson’s or
citizen’s. Briefly put, the professional’s job requires and
encourages attention to a limited part of the environment. The job
of police officer, soldier, pilot, firefighter, power plant
operator, doctor, nurse, and so forth, exists to take a limited set
of actions with respect to a limited set of people and conditions.
Any other actions or concerns—listening to a sporting event, arguing
with a partner, worrying about the mortgage—are at least officially
out of bounds, regardless of how often they happen in real life. The
fact that mistakes occur—aircraft land on the wrong runway, soldiers
get caught in an ambush, the wrong medicine is given—is evidence
that even under the best of circumstances SA can be imperfect.
The ordinary
person concerned with self-defense has a job that is easier than the
professional’s in some ways and harder in others. It is easier
because, except in truly dire circumstances, people are not required
to seek out danger, or carry out missions regardless of danger. The
police officer, soldier, and firefighter ultimately exist in order
to confront and contain danger. The medical professional, though not
often at personal risk, exists to intervene in situations that
threaten others’ lives or well-being.
The typical
armed citizen or layperson, in contrast, has little to do with
danger on a daily basis and is rarely, if ever, threatened (except
perhaps in traffic). Most can order their lives to minimize their
exposure, and the likelihood of their need for awareness of threat
is correspondingly less. Furthermore, the layperson’s first option
is to avoid rather than face threats. That’s how their job is
easier. It is more difficult because, when danger is present, their
knowledge is less accessible, their skills are likely to be less
practiced, and (at least compared to police, military, and
firefighters) their allowable actions are more restricted. Also
unlike the professional “on the job,” the layperson’s attention is
directed to a range of tasks—getting the groceries, making the sale,
writing the article—and these motives and their associated concepts
render the knowledge necessary for SA relatively less accessible.
Being mindful of one’s surroundings takes additional effort and
skill, beyond that required for one’s daily life. For the
professional, that is one’s daily life. Furthermore, unlike
many professionals (e.g. soldiers and firefighters), the armed
citizen is likely to be alone, or at least be the only person with
any training, when facing possible danger. In short, the layperson
is less likely to need awareness of threat on a day-to-day basis,
but when it is necessary, he or she must rely on less accessible
knowledge, on less practiced skills, and must create a response from
among fewer options.
Some might
argue that awareness skills are already in place, at least for most
people. After all, don’t we drive in heavy traffic and avoid
accidents regularly? Doesn’t this require observation and inference,
both conscious and intuitive? Yes, but that is largely irrelevant.
One, in traffic the vast majority just want to get to their
destinations. They may be careless, unskilled, intoxicated, or
reckless, but they’re not after you. Second, regardless of how good
a driver you are, the domain of knowledge is different, and we know
that expertise doesn’t transfer well (see, for example, Bedard and
Chi, 1992). For example, I’ve been riding motorcycles for 41 years.
I’ve raced, toured, commuted and cruised, in circumstances ranging
from Florida swamps to Chicago rush hours, in all seasons and all
weather. When my helmet goes on, so does my “race face,” and I move
up and down the color code from yellow to orange to red and back
several times a trip. I find myself noticing drivers about to do
something potentially dangerous without knowing why I did, and
likewise know when there are likely to be hazards like gravel or wet
leaves on the road. Yes, I make mistakes when tired or distracted,
though probably fewer than the average person. Nevertheless, when
walking around in Atlanta, or on the Georgia Tech campus, I
frequently find myself in Condition White despite my best intentions
(and the efforts of those who’ve trained me). I’ll be in a hallway,
for instance, and someone will pass me from behind, someone I didn’t
know was there. Maybe it’s just me—there are individual differences
in SA (Endsley & Bolstad, 1994)—but there’s likewise substantial
data on the limits of expertise that it makes no sense to ignore.
What to Train?
SA training,
like any other, requires us to establish both general and specific
training objectives. Our general objective should be to increase two
types of correct actions, and reduce two types of mistakes. We want
to increase, first, true positives; that is, to detect danger
when it exists. Klein (1998) gives a vivid account of how a
firefighter’s intuitive misgivings led him to evacuate a seemingly
ordinary house fire just before the floor collapsed. Pinizzotto,
Davis, and Miller (2004) provide a similar example, a police
officer’s timely identification of an armed suspect during a drug
raid. Next, we want to increase true negatives; that is,
dismiss a potential source of danger when it is, in fact, harmless.
Givens (undated b) discusses returning to condition yellow after
checking a potential danger. There are no dramatic examples of true
negatives, but they are just as important to accurate SA.
Two types of
mistakes require attention because of their huge potential cost.
First, the false positive identifies danger where none is
present. Ayoob (2000) provides a compelling account of one such
mistake, the tragic shooting of Amadou Diallo. Experienced New York
City police officers’ training, motives, expectations, and emotional
state combined with Diallo’s own actions and the marginal
environment to produce a needless death that none intended or
imagined could happen.
The second
type of mistake, the false negative, is the perception of
safety where danger exists. Just as tragic as Diallo’s death, though
not as well publicized, is the murder of Captain Robbie Bishop of
Carrollton County, GA. Captain Bishop, an experienced officer and
expert in drug interdiction, was shot to death in his patrol car as
he wrote a routine traffic citation (www.copsite.com/lwf/lwf99disjon.html;
www.ncea314.com/robbiebishop.asp). Though we can never know what
led Captain Bishop to miss the danger signals his murderer gave, we
must realize that any of us are capable of the same mistake.
Preventing
mistakes like these might seem require contradictory courses of
action: training both slower, more thoughtful responses (to avoid
false positives) or faster, more aggressive responses (to avoid
false negatives). Both are wrong. Simply put, at a given level of
information, any change in response threshold (the “mental trigger”
that governs action) to reduce one type of mistake will inevitably
increase the other. Any change made to increase the percent of true
positives will also increase the percent of false positives, and if
one acts to increase the rate of true negatives, false negatives
will increase as well. Given any level of error or uncertainty in
our information, this must be true, simply by the laws of
probability.
There are only
two ways to reduce the rate of both types of mistakes while
increasing that of both types of correct decisions: to have
information that is more accurate and to use the information at hand
better. These goals are the general objectives of training. The most
efficient way to accomplish them is to find people who are already
excellent at gathering and using information, discover what they
know, how they know it, how it is organized, and how it is used, and
teach those things to others. At the same time, research and further
experience can increase our knowledge and the effectiveness of our
training. While it may not be possible to make an expert of every
trainee, we can certainly raise the average and, as in sports, raise
the level of peak performance as well.
Specific
Objectives
A great many
people have provided lists of potential danger signals, and it would
be redundant to repeat them here. One thing we don’t know is whether
these signals—the coat in warm weather, the stranger who watches you
or avoids your eyes, and so forth—are the only useful ones. These
are simply the ones that experts can consciously articulate.
We also don’t
know for sure what the expert notices about the environment, beyond
the important but obvious features: the location of exits, the
arrangement of tables in a restaurant, the location of cover and
concealment, the position of other patrons in a store, etc.
Sometimes, in fact, even these “obvious” features are unnoticed when
we are preoccupied. Therefore, the first thing we need to know is
how the expert scans the environment and how that information is
organized and interpreted. Beyond visuals, we need to know what is
heard, felt, smelled, tasted—even if the expert him- or herself
can’t really tell us. In short, we need research. Some studies can
use simulations, with equipment that tracks eye movements and
records scanning patterns of scenes presented on a video monitor.
These can be coupled with verbal probes. Such studies are now
beginning (Force Science News, 2004). More elaborate studies might
employ volunteers wearing glasses containing video cameras, so that
areas attracting attention as the person goes about their daily life
can be recorded and analyzed. GPS devices can track a person’s
movement through environments such as shopping malls. In each case,
experts’ and non-experts’ patterns of attention, movement, and
reports of observations can be compared. Probably the simplest and
cheapest method is what we currently do informally: interview
people. We typically only interview after some incident, but I
suggest that we also interview more and less expert observers
during and after routine days, with questions designed to capture
not only conscious observations but also feelings and intuitive
signals. Most importantly, we should employ multiple methods, since
each has strengths that complement another’s drawbacks (see, for
instance, Ericsson, 2002).
We should
treat the information thus gained as tentative, as hypotheses rather
than facts. If, say, we find a particular pattern of scanning or
movement to be characteristic of experts, its effectiveness can be
tested in training studies and simulations.
Waiting for
research to provide all the answers, though, is unnecessary and
counterproductive. “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” Our
knowledge may not be perfect, but it will never be. With our present
technology and experience, we can train not only attention to known
danger signals, but also the elaborated situational models that
support both conscious and implicit awareness as well as action. As
we gain knowledge, we can incorporate it into ongoing training.
We can also
train observational skills. Although these are not independent of
specific knowledge and situational models, each can reinforce the
others. Scanning, listening, awareness of change, and especially
attention to implicit responses—“feelings”--
will add a dimension now missing from most training.
We can also
train motivation towards two goals: to attend to one’s environment,
and to practice the skills necessary to awareness. While those who
choose to arm themselves are already “motivated,” the specific
motive to attend to one’s environment must compete with others, even
motives as mundane as remembering to pick up a gallon of milk, or to
get the car’s oil changed. Likewise, the motive to improve one’s
skills at observation, inference, and intuition must compete with
other ordinary motives on a moment-to-moment basis, and compete
long-term for our limited attention, time, and energy.
We also need
to train immediate action skills. In one sense, these are the focus
of most of our current training in armed or unarmed combat. But all
of these presuppose that we have identified a real danger. What if
we are uncertain? It’s apparent that there are real individual
differences in the skills that gain us the distance and time to make
better judgments; they emerge reliably in simulations and
assessments like the ATSA Village scenarios, but if they have been
systematized anywhere, I’m not aware of it. Once again, expert
reports and careful observation might be valuable.
How to Train
Before
considering training techniques, we need to establish measures of
performance. Without reliable and valid feedback, effective learning
doesn’t happen. Without useful measures of awareness, we are unable
to evaluate the effectiveness of training. At present, there are two
types of measures: individual knowledge of situations, assessed by
direct questioning during or after simulations (Endsley,
Sollenberger, & Stein, 2000; Jones & Endsley, 2000; Matthews,
Pleban, Endsley, & Strater, 2000) and performance scores on tasks
that require situational knowledge (Pritchett, Hausman, & Johnson,
1996). The latter are likewise measured via simulations. Both types
are limited. Questioning does not assess the connection of knowledge
to action, and is limited to the contents of awareness. If not
properly conducted, questioning itself may bias the results (see
Ericsson, 2002). Performance measures, unless very carefully
designed, do not provide specific knowledge of the timing and
content of awareness, though they reflect both implicit and explicit
processes. Fortunately, the two methods are complementary. Both can
and should be used.
Situational
Models and Danger Signals
These need to
be discussed together, because signals are only meaningful as parts
of a cognitive model. Without an elaborated model, a list of signals
is no more meaningful or easy to use than a laundry list. If our
goal is to create expert-level models to guide perception and
response, we need to do it the same way other kinds of expertise are
created: deliberate, guided practice (Ericsson & Charness, 1994;
Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Romer, 1993). But at what tasks?
I suggest that
we can incorporate the desired skills into a number of tasks. First,
the technology of first-person video games can be adapted to present
realistic scenarios based on existing and future knowledge. For
example, we know that behavior such as voice tone and posture can
communicate intention and emotional state (see de Gelder, et al.,
2004, for a recent example.) There is no reason why subtle signals
of danger or safety, once discovered, can’t be represented in video
games as well as they are in movies. They should include active
response options, to build connections between SA and multiple
options for action. The chess master’s perception of a position
automatically calls up sets of effective moves and countermoves, and
this automaticity additionally provides the capacity needed to
create new options. The novice, meanwhile, is searching memory or
“dithering,” trying to make a choice. Our training should aim at
producing the master’s kind of skill. These games have the advantage
of being usable at home, easily upgraded, adaptable to any skill
level and relatively inexpensive. While they lack important elements
of realism (physical movement, for instance) they are certainly no
worse than other training simulations. They can be programmed to
probe for knowledge at random intervals and to provide detailed
performance feedback.
We can
incorporate realistic awareness training into recreational
activities such as IDPA competition. Right now IDPA tests
marksmanship, movement, and gun-handling skills, but there is no
reason why we can’t build threat identification and avoidance into
scenarios. I’ve been impressed, for instance, by the creativity of a
number of friends who devised inexpensive moving targets and
“pop-out” threat cues. My local Polite Society group has made
efforts along these lines, too, and of course, it’s a central theme
of the NTI.
More elaborate
training facilities offer “shoot-houses” of varying levels of
complexity. Every year, entrepreneurs offer visits to Halloween
“haunted houses” starting about October 1, and firms exist that will
set them up in any warehouse or other space. It seems to me an easy
step to combine these creations, using airsoft training weapons if
the use of live-fire or simunitions weapons is not feasible. While
obviously too elaborate and costly for everyday use, they could be
employed to teach both awareness and response skills, with immediate
feedback.
As digital
video recording becomes less expensive, this technology can also be
incorporated into training. Having a visual reference for feedback
and review (e.g. “See how you walked past that doorway?”) could be
very helpful in correcting mistakes and in planning more effective
actions.
Mental
rehearsal is another valuable practice routine. Widely used in
sports training and in a variety of therapies, (see, e.g., Dunn,
2001; Swets & Bjork, 1990), visualization and mental rehearsal
skills can be easily learned and practiced almost anywhere. Combined
with video and text materials, and guided by formal instruction,
visualization and rehearsal can help integrate and elaborate one’s
mental models of situations, habits of observation, and patterns of
response. A technique suggested by several trainers is to read crime
reports in the local newspaper and visualize one’s response to the
situation. We can easily expand this to visualizing and rehearsing
scanning patterns and behavioral signals that trigger effective
action.
Feedback is
necessary for practice to build skill. I suggest applying awareness
skills consciously, as we go through our daily routines. We can test
ourselves by recording, for example, how many times per day we have
to suddenly stop because someone we didn’t notice came out of a
doorway or around a corner, or at lunch by trying to remember the
location of exits in our restaurant.
Motivation for
Awareness
It might seem
silly to say that one needs to learn the motivation to be aware of
one’s surroundings, especially to NTI participants. We know,
however, that motives must be active to guide perception and action,
and that motives compete for our limited attentional capacity (see,
e.g., Bargh & Gollwitzer, 1994; Feldman Barrett, Tugade, & Engle,
2004). In order to influence our awareness reliably, then, the
motive to be aware needs chronic activation.
Motives arise
because classes of actions are consistently associated with
pleasurable outcomes, or the avoidance of painful ones. Effective
soldiers, firefighters, and police officers maintain awareness for
two simple reasons: they may die if they don’t, and their partners,
teammates and buddies both support and depend on them.
Supporters,
though, rarely surround armed citizens—in fact, we’re likely to be
dismissed as “paranoid”—and the presence of danger is far less
frequent and obtrusive. That means that, most of the time, each
person has to reward him- or herself. We can set up self-reward
schedules based on our self-evaluated performance and alertness, as
discussed above. It may be a feeling of accomplishment we allow
ourselves to have, an extra helping of dessert, a cigar after
dinner, or $5 towards something we want to buy—the trick is to
develop a consistent habit of thought and action around awareness.
We can build
positive reinforcement into our group practices and competitions as
well. People are social creatures, and receiving approval and status
for an activity is a powerful incentive as well as a way to make the
activity itself rewarding. When awareness tests are included in
competition scenarios, and we create a social norm of mutual
encouragement and reinforcement, we’ve taken an important step in
creating a chronically active motive.
Motivation to
Train
Ericsson, et
al. (1993) and Ericsson and Charness (1994) find that many years of
dedicated practice are necessary to achieve world-class expertise in
any field. Furthermore, they note that most people do not
deliberately practice after attaining minimal skill at some
activity; they play for fun, not for keeps. How do experts
discipline themselves to attain peak performance? Is this level of
dedication necessary to our goals?
Fortunately,
the answer to second question is “no.” What’s necessary is to be
better, and to seek continual improvement. While it’s true that in
life-threatening situations there is no such thing as “good enough,”
it’s also true that we all have other areas of our lives that are as
or more important on a daily basis. The crucial goal is to make
improving awareness an integral part of daily activities, not
something that unduly interferes with them.
If training is
a source of frustration and anxiety, it’s not going to be done, and
will undermine awareness motives as well. The trick to maintaining
“motivation control” and “emotion control’ (Kanfer & Ackerman, 1995)
lies in knowing how to set goals, what goals to set, and how to
react to them.
We know that
setting difficult, specific goals improves performance on
well-learned tasks and inhibits learning at early stages.
Self-focused attention and negative emotion seem to be the culprits
in the latter. That suggests avoiding specific goals early in
training, instead adopting a “mastery” orientation—that is, focusing
on improvement, regardless of the rate. This needs to be combined
with self-reinforcement for any improvement, however small, and
periods of reflection on task strategies. That is, regard feedback
as information, rather than as evaluation, and use it to explore
various means of improving performance. As skill builds, specific
goals can be adopted, keeping the “mastery’ approach. The logic is
that there is no pre-set upper limit to performance, no “good
enough” point, but that improvement is its own reward.
Directing
attention to the task rather than the self is only half the story,
though. A learning process necessarily creates mistakes, and for at
least some people mistakes create negative emotions that can not
only interfere with learning but also lead to withdrawal. Some
people become anxious at the thought of doing any activity at which
they may fail, with similar results. Teaching emotion management
skills can increase performance and allow the activity itself to
become enjoyable. A variety of techniques, such as controlled
relaxation combined with visualization, can short-circuit anxiety.
“Positive self-talk” is a way of making emotionally positive ideas
and concepts accessible in stressful situations. These, combined
with rehearsal and visualization of skills, can enhance skill and
motivation simultaneously.
Conclusion
This paper has
not been nearly so much about answers as questions; How should we
regard “situation awareness”? How is our knowledge of the world
organized, and how might we use that organization to our advantage?
What do experts know that the rest of us don’t? How can we capture
that knowledge, and transfer it efficiently? The theories, data, and
methods discussed here represent (in my opinion) our best current
answers to those questions, but if science teaches us anything it’s
that the questions count more than the answers, and that we make
progress by learning to ask different questions. Experience teaches
us that some of the most productive questions come from observations
of the world, especially observations of the solutions people find
to the daily problems they face. I hope that this paper stimulates
people to explore, ponder, discuss, and evaluate in practice the
ideas summarized here, and that the process proves to be of benefit
even if some or all of the ideas are wrong. This will take time and
effort. That shouldn’t be discouraging. As engineers say about any
kind of project or product:
You can have
it good.
You can have
it fast.
You can have
it cheap.
Pick two.
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