Abstract
We investigated the effects of multiple wireless devices on human performance in emergency situations. The objective of the research was to observe in a naturalistic setting the kinds of interpersonal and wireless communication losses experienced by first responders during emergency responses, and to determine both their causes and their effects on human performance and safety. Assessment of the cognitive and physical workload of first responders indicated moderate levels of workload and perceived temporal stress. Although tactical team leaders naturally experience increased workload due to the nature of their roles, radio communications loss did not significantly impact that load. However, it was noted that despite the safety detriments, first responders continued with mission tasks without ensuring an acceptable level of radio communication with cohorts. Recommendations were made to mitigate communications loss, minimize risk, enhance safety, and ensure first responders maintain situation awareness.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Baldini, G., et al.: Survey of wireless communication technologies for public safety. In: IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, vol. 16, No. 2. Second Quarter (2014)
Doumi, T.L.: spectrum considerations for public safety in the United States. IEEE Commun. Mag. (2006)
Klein, G., Ross, K.G., Moon, B.M., Klein, D.E., Hoffman, R.R., Hollnagel, E.: Macrocognition. IEEE Intell. Syst. 18(3), 81–85 (2003). doi:10.1109/MIS.2003.1200735
Rahman, M.: (2007). High Velocity human factors: human factors in mission critical domains in nonequilibrium. In: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics 51st Annual Meeting. Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Santa Monica, pp. 273–277
Pritchett, A.: Preface to the JCEDM special issue on situation awareness. J. Cogn. Eng. Decis. Making 9(1), 3 (2015). doi:10.1177/1555343415572807
Kumbhar, A., et al.: A Comparative study of land mobile radio and LTE-based public safety communications. In: Proceedings of IEEE South East Conference, Apr 2015
Borg, G., Borg, E.: Principles and experiments in category-ratio scaling. Reports from Department of Psychology, No. 789. Stockholm University, Stockholm (1994)
Hart, S.G., Staveland, L.E.: Development of NASA-TLX (task load index): results of empirical and theoretical research. In: Hancock, P.A., Meshkati, N. (eds.) Human Mental Workload. North Holland Press, Amsterdam (1988)
Rahman, M.: Understanding naturalistic decision making under life threatening conditions. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Naturalistic Decision Making. The British Computer Society, Swindon, pp. 121–128 (2009)
Acknowledgments
This research was done under a cooperative agreement grant from the Department of Homeland Security First Responder Group, Science and Technology Directorate: award number 2014-ST-108-FRG0001.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Irwin, E., Guest, R., Rahman, M. (2016). Risk for First Responders Due to Cognitive Workload and Communication Loss. In: Arezes, P. (eds) Advances in Safety Management and Human Factors. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 491. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41929-9_28
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41929-9_28
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-41928-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-41929-9
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)