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Balancing Fidelity of Simulation Game Environments to Increase Situational Awareness Skills

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 8605))

Abstract

Many working tasks in our complex, technology-based world require active participation in a joint action. Communication and cooperation are basic skills needed for a well functioning team, especially in safety-critical domains like security. In this domain, the ability of a team to cooperate sometimes even decides about life and death. The development of situational awareness and understanding is seen as a prerequisite for effective teamwork. Traditional methods of enhancing teamwork related skills are limited due to their lack of flexibility and their distance to real world challenges. The study aims at exploring whether and how a simulation game should be designed in terms of fidelity to support situational awareness training. Results from usability tests show that realistic virtual environments imply the ability to foster teamwork related skills like situational awareness and communication.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We acknowledge the term “reality” is quite controversial, but do not want to involve in this discussion. With “reality”, we try to describe the physical world we live in and perceive with our natural cognitive abilities.

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Acknowledgments

The Dutch Pieken-in-de-Delta program and the municipality of The Hague supported this work. Alexander Verbraeck, Theo van Ruijven, Linda van Veen and Bas van Nuland of Delft University of Technology also put a lot of effort in this project.

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Correspondence to Heide Lukosch .

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Lukosch, H. (2014). Balancing Fidelity of Simulation Game Environments to Increase Situational Awareness Skills. In: De Gloria, A. (eds) Games and Learning Alliance. GALA 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8605. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12157-4_31

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12157-4_31

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-12156-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-12157-4

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