Situational Awareness and Diving

Louby Lou

Hi Guys and Gals

I was wondering if anyone out there knows of any research papers or must reads which particularly address the notion of situational awareness in diving, either CCR, OC, commercial or recreational?

I've had a search on Google and have got some bits and pieces, but nothing really that addresses the cognitive states and processes that are present/ occur whilst we are diving. I've been on the DDRC website for the UK and have been through the DAN abstracts, but alot of the psych reports relating to diving tackle mental health issues and substance abuse etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated if anyone has any ideas, even if it is only remotely connected. You can either post on this thread or if you prefer drop me a PM or email me at auntylooloo at hotmail.com

Cheers in advance

Miss Lou

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Gene_Hobbs

We do not have permission from the author to add this paper to the Rubicon Research Repository yet but this is available online through DTIC.

SA measurements alone will be hard to find. They are more commonly a small part of bigger studies. The person to ask is Dr. Curley. He is a Human Factors Engineer and has been a part of most of the Navy Studies using SA. There was some VERY nice work done on stress and performance in JIM Suits.

Hope this helps,
G

Accession Number:
ADA322423 Full Text (pdf) Availability:
Size: 4 MB
Handle / proxy Url: http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA322423 Citation Status:
ACTIVE
Title:
Human Factors in Diving, Fields and Groups :
060400 - ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY
060500 - MEDICINE AND MEDICAL RESEARCH
230500 - LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS

Corporate Author:
CALIFORNIA UNIV BERKELEY
Personal Author(s):
Blumenberg, Michael A.
Report Date:
DEC 1996
Media Count:
84 Pages(s)
Organization Type:
0 - PUBLIC/STATE ACADEMIC EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
Report Number(s):
XDXD (XDXD)

Monitor Acronym(s):
XD (XD)

Monitor Series:
XD (XD)

Descriptors:
*HUMAN FACTORS ENGINEERING, *LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS, *DIVERS, *DIVING, *UNDERWATER, *DIVER EQUIPMENT, STRESSES, ENVIRONMENTS, DEGRADATION, PERFORMANCE(HUMAN), WATER, STRESS(PSYCHOLOGY), STRESS(PHYSIOLOGY), TEAMS(PERSONNEL), SAFETY, ACCIDENTS.
Abstract:
Dive safety is primarily a function of four factors: the environment, equipment, individual diver performance and dive team performance. The water is a harsh and alien environment which can impose severe physical and psychological stress on a diver. The remaining factors must be controlled and coordinated so the diver can overcome the stresses imposed by the underwater environment and work safely. Diving equipment is crucial because it provides life support to the diver, but the majority of dive accidents are caused by individual diver panic and an associated degradation of the individual diverts performance. This paper investigates the factors which influence human performance and behavior, and focuses on divers working underwater. Recommendations are offered on how to improve dive safety through knowledge and awareness of human factors. Distribution Limitation(s):
01 - APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
23 - AVAILABILITY: DOCUMENT PARTIALLY ILLEGIBLE
Source Code:
071850
Document Location:
DTIC AND NTIS
Geopolitical Code:
0608
SBI Holding Symbol:
ASM NPS
Distribution Statement:
Availability: Document partially illegible.
Citation Created:
26 MAR 1997
Citation Updated:
16 APR 1997

ScubaDadMiami

Would you please define what you mean by situational awareness? Are you talking about becoming in touch with one's senses? Do you mean things like keeping track of where one is, location and the location of a buddy, etc?

Tom Mount has authored many passages over the years that deal with becoming in touch with one's senses during the dive. Is that what you are thinking of? If that's the case, you will find some of this in the IANTD literature.

__________________
Howard Packer
IANTD CCR Instructor
Miami Beach, Florida
CCRDiveTraining.com

Gene_Hobbs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situational_awareness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_factors

Enjoy!
G

Joe

Hey Gene, Miss Lou:

I don't know about any research papers but experience has taught me that lack of same is probably the biggest cause of dive accidents. It is amazing how many otherwise competant divers have absolutely no clue about what is happening around them.

Joe

montyg

Peter Steinhoff recently wrote an article for DIR Diving

It looks like the DIRX site is down right now, but the direct link is:

What is Situational Awareness? - Peter Steinhoff - DIR Explorers

If you Google "situational awareness Peter Steinhoff", it's one of the first hits and it's cached there ...

HTH

rgds
monty

Louby Lou

Hi

Thanks Gene for the info and the abstract its really very much appreciated. I'll have a hunt for the research papers etc that I can find for Dr. Curley and DTIC, they sound just what I've been looking for. Alot of the work that I do at the moment centres around human factors - error and performance, incorporating SA in relation to military pilots and from a personal view I really wanted to take a further look at this in terms of diving.

I've already started to put together a lit. review which is helping me to get some more focus as SA is such a vast area as you say, its very easy loose focus, so hopefully this will help me to determine in which direction I'll take it; for the moment this is building up as a potential thesis for my PhD... fingers crossed

Scuba Dad Miami - I second Gene's Wiki links as probably the easiest way to describe SA

Monty - thanks for the DIRX link, I've got a link to the article; I think it came out of a thread on SA that went on on DIRX, posted by Claire, which was based on another thread by me asking for some help on the SWM forum, thanks for letting me know though

Joe - that's one of the particular reasons I do want to look at SA in diving, but it will be part of a more global study of SA in diving, I want to take on with the line of work that I'm in and incorporate human factors into it too...

Thanks so much for your input guys


Cheers

Lou

__________________
Miss Lou x

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Outlaw Divers - Sssh we're diving!

You heff vays uff dealink vis zem, oh Miss Rebreather World Admin! - Rob Davie Feb 06

bendomatic

have you tried searching on" human factors diving" on pubmed. Entrez PubMed Not sure of relevancy.

__________________
why deal with idiots on the net when you have to spend all day dealing with them at work.

Gene_Hobbs

A better search is "human factors underwater". One of the better "control" papers is knobology underwater. The big problem for most people looking for information is poor indexing. If you start at the right journal <http://www.hfes.org/web/Default.aspx> you can get to the right keywords. Then tools like PubMed and SPORTDiscus can become more powerful.

Good luck!
G