Extending the scope of situation analysis

The use of technology to assist human decision making has been around for quite some time now. In the literature, models of both technological and human aspects of this support can be identified. However, we argue that there is a need for a unified model which synthesizes and extends existing models. In this paper, we give two perspectives on situation analysis: a technological perspective and a human perspective. These two perspectives are merged into a unified situation analysis model for semi-automatic, automatic and manual decision support (SAM)². The unified model can be applied to decision support systems with any degree of automation. Moreover, an extension of the proposed model is developed which can be used for discussing important concepts such as common operational picture and common situation awareness.