Part 2 ( Barriers to Commander Situational Awareness) Chapter 11: Attention Management

Question 1

In your fight or flight response, multiple sensory systems like visual, auditory, and tactile - instinctively go on high alert. This causes you to become hypervigilant for anything your brain interprets as a ____

Answer 1

threat

Question 2

These inadvertently draw your attention away from what you are supposed to be watching or listening to. It draws you away on accident. An example is a loud noise or bright light.

Answer 2

Distractions

Question 3

These happen on purpose and draw your attention away intentionally. An example is someone approaches you to talk

Answer 3

interruptions

Question 4

This happens when someone approaches you and takes your attention away from what your were listening to and causes you to potentially miss something

Answer 4

selective listening

Question 5

This concept is often taught in basic emergency responder training programs as tunnel vision. This biological reaction in the brain causes your senses to narrowly focus on stimuli that are perceived as threatening. You can even narrow to down to one geographical area of an incident or task

Answer 5

narrowing of attention

Question 6

This flight crashed into the Florida everglades in 1972 when the landing lightbulb went out and the pilots were too distracted trying to fix the problem that they disengaged the autopilot and didn’t realize it until it was too late.

Answer 6

Eastern Airlines Flight 401

Question 7

A good SA best practice to avoid task fixation/tunnel vision is to

Answer 7

assign other command level officers to sectors/divisions to monitor task level work and report back to the commander