Physiological Measurements of Situation Awareness: A Systematic Review

Objective The goal of this review is to investigate the relationship between indirect physiological measurements and direct measures of situation awareness (SA). Background Assessments of SA are often performed using techniques designed specifically to directly measure SA, such as SA global assessment technique (SAGAT), situation present assessment method (SPAM), and/or SA rating technique (SART). However, research suggests that physiological sensing methods may also be capable of inferring SA. Method Seven databases were searched. Eligibility criteria included human-subject experiments that used at least one direct SA assessment technique as well as at least one physiological measurement. Information extracted from each article were the physiological metric(s), direct SA measurement(s), correlation between these two metrics, and experimental task(s). Results Twenty-five articles were included in this review. Eye tracking techniques were the most commonly used physiological measures, and correlations between conscious aspects of eye movement measures and direct SA scores were observed. Evidence for cardiovascular predictors of SA was mixed. Only three electroencephalography (EEG) studies were identified, and their results suggest that EEG was sensitive to changes in SA. Overall, medium correlations were observed among the studies that reported a correlation coefficient between physiological and direct SA measures. Conclusion Reviewed studies observed relationships between a wide range of physiological measurements and direct assessments of SA. However, further investigations are needed to methodically collect more evidence. Application This review provides researchers and practitioners a summary of observed methods to indirectly assess SA with sensors and highlights research gaps to be addressed in future work.