Situation awareness and human performance in target recognition

Human performance in complex systems often depends upon the integration of visual, contextual and automated information. In this paper we discuss the relationship between situation awareness and operators' use of visual and automated information for target recognition decisions. In a pilot experiment in which we systematically manipulated situational context, we found that subjects increase their false-alarm rate when they expect a high density of enemy targets. The results suggest the importance of designing displays that accurately portray situational information.