Studying operator behaviour during a simple but safety critical task

A loss of sufficient Situation Awareness may lead to human errors, possibly resulting in accidents. Situation Awareness is often conceptually described in terms of operators’ correct perception and understanding of a situation. It is though becoming increasingly clear, however, that team SA is an important concept as well. An initial idea for a continuous measure of Team Situation Awareness was tried out in a small technical pilot study conducted in the nuclear reactor control room at Risø. In our present study we seek to develop integrative methods combining eye-movement tracking data with other behavioral data. The study described in this paper is a pilot study, which seeks to establish the feasibility of applying these methods of measurement and analysis, not their validity.