Exploring the central executive in situation awareness

Abstract

Despite its significance, the central executive is the least explored component of working memory, particularly in complicated contexts. Exp. 1 investigated the role of executive control of working memory in situation awareness in a real-life driving simulation. Exp. 2 examined the extent to which taxing the central executive might affect situation awareness. High, Medium, and Low Situation Awareness groups were formed as assessed using the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique. Executive function was measured using several tests. Results from Exp. 1 demonstrated that the Low Situation Awareness group performed significantly worse on all executive function tasks compared to High and Medium Situation Awareness groups. Findings from Exp. 2 suggested that concurrent load on the central executive dramatically affected the Low Situation Awareness group but not the High Situation Awareness group: the former had significantly more driving violations under central executive load. © 2010 Psychological Reports.