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Intelligent video surveillance systems (IVSS) that can track people, identify unattended objects, and recognize activity are constantly being developed, updated, and tested against standard test stimuli. The development of these systems, however, seems to focus on technological advancements and largely ignores how automation will affect the human closed-circuit television (CCTV) operator. This paper outlines the advantages of employing a cognitive system engineering approach to the design of IVSS, reviews the literature that has examined human factors issues related to CCTV automation, and introduces a testbed for investigating the effects of automated surveillance technology on human CCTV operators.

In this paper, we report results from a large-scale military experiment with Canadian Forces (CF) officers on the impact of collaborative work support systems—in the present experiment, a set of integrated tools such as operations planning systems, joint fire systems and other logistics tools—on individual and shared situation awareness (SA). In order to measure SA and the ability to share SA, we used the Quantitative Assessment of Situation Awareness (QUASA) technique: We first analyzed SA quality (sensitivity, response bias, accuracy) and metacognition (level of confidence, and calibration bias), and then computed the level of response concordance within and across groups (three different Operational Commands of the CF). The addition of the new support system led to a significant improvement in shared SA. However, this beneficial effect comes with a drop in both objective and perceived individual SA. From this pattern of results, we conclude that there might be a tradeoff between SA sharedness and quality. Supporting the process of sharing SA through enhanced means of information integration and exchange, communication and coordination can also lead to a considerable decrease in individual SA and meta-SA.

The prevalence of surveillance and information collection technologies provides decision-makers with greater volume and complexity of information to monitor and on which to base decisions than ever before. In this ever increasing dynamic and information rich environment, the role for decision support systems (DSS) to augment cognition and situation awareness (SA) is becoming crucial. However, unless a better understanding is gained of the factors that promote SA without interfering with other critical cognitive functions, the design and development of such technology may serve only to exacerbate rather than enhance the desired effect. The present study investigates how DSS designed to support particular aspects of SA may affect task performance. In the context of a functional computer-controlled simulation of single ship naval anti-air warfare, a baseline condition was compared to two conditions in which a DSS was integrated to the original interface to support different facets of SA. Participants in the two DSS conditions showed an increased SA level, as measured by the QUASA technique, compared to those in the control condition. Despite this benefit, the two DSS actually lead to a reduced performance, as indexed by defense effectiveness. These findings suggest that the benefits of DSS in terms of SA may be accompanied by an overhead with adverse effects on task performance, particularly in situations of high cognitive load and time constraints. This calls for more holistic evaluations of the cognitive impacts of decision support technologies and the development of methods to simultaneously address competing constraints when designing DSS.