PERFORMANCE IN NOISE: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORKLOAD AND SITUATION AWARENESS IN NAVY TACTICAL TEAMS

Abstract

The relationship between workload and situation awareness (SA) has been researched generally; however, the relationship between measures of SA and workload, SPAM and NASA TLX respectively, has not been established. This study was completed using a tactical military scenario in which two participants acted as they would standing watch on a US Navy ship. One participant, the Tactical Action Officer (TAO) had reduced speech intelligibility in some trials. The results showed that the relationship between workload and SA differed by role (TAO or CICWO) and by the speech intelligibility level. This work shows the complex relationship between workload and SA and shows the need further investigation in this area, especially in teams.