In D.J. Garland and M.R. Endsley (Eds.) Experimental Analysis and Measurement of Situation Awareness. Proceedings of the International Conference on Experimental Analysis and Measurement of Situation Awareness. Daytona Beach, Florida: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Press. 1995. pp. 245-251. 245 Analyzing Situation Awareness During Wayfinding in a Driving Simulator Jack M. Beusmans 1 , Vlada Aginsky 1 , Catherine L. Harris 2 , Ronald A. Rensink 1 1 Cambridge Basic Research, Cambridge, MA 2 Boston University, Boston, MA Abstract Learning a route through an unfamiliar area requires an ongoing awareness of one's position in the world. We investigated how subjects established this "situation awareness" in a driving simulator. After learning a route, subjects' visual and spatial abilities were tested by having them follow the route in a world with altered landmarks. We found that subjects used one of two different ways to orient themselves. One group of subjects relied almost exclusively on visual scene recognition, being aware of their position only at decision points along the route. The other group, in contrast, used a more spatial representation of their environment, being aware of their position between decision points as well. Introduction Although situation awareness (SA) has been studied most extensively in the context of aviation, it is relevant to other kinds of tasks as well. In particular, it is relevant to the more mundane task of driving, which requires SA in the literal sense of being aware of where and how one is situated within the world. Driving is both a source of great convenience and great danger in our lives (in 1993 in the US, over 7 million vehicles were involved in accidents, causing 2.6 million personal injuries and 36,000 fatalities). Consequently, much effort has been directed towards trying to understand the “human factors” component in vehicle acci- dents. Measures of basic visual performance have turned out to be only weakly predictive of accident rates (Hills, 1980). Instead, what is predictive are measures of cognitive abilities related to and subserving SA, such as being able to divide attention between multiple targets (Owsley et al., 1991; Ball and Rebok, 1994). As such, SA would appear to be a key factor in driving safety. Given the importance of SA, it has been suggested that recent attempts to improve driving safety by adding “intelligence” to the car without duly considering the human driver may be counterproductive (Owens et al., 1993). As in the case of aviations, there is great concern that intelligent devices (collision warning systems, automatic cruise control, etc.) may decrease SA and so increase drivers’ risk. The same issue has been raised for head-up displays, which superimpose visual information on the driver’s forward view. If this information is similar to the actual scene—as in some experimental navigational aides—there is a real possibility that SA could be lost.