Assessing Cognitive Fidelity in a Situation Awareness Process Model

The model of situation awareness (SA) as described by Mica Endsley in her articles over the past couple decades is based in empirical psychological research and validated through testing and application across many domains. While there are many similar descriptive (“box-and-arrow”) models of human SA, some of which differ significantly from Endsley's, few computational process models of human SA exist. The vigorous debate over the proper form and function of descriptive SA models offers us a valuable insight into how best to evaluate process models for their adherence to human cognitive processes. Here we propose criteria, based on the descriptive SA model literature, for evaluating computational process models' SA capabilities, provide an example of that evaluation, and argue for the utility of computational process models in testing theoretical claims about situation awareness.