Selective Listening Archives - Situational Awareness Matters!™

Hands-Free Driving Laws are a Bad Idea

Leave a Comment / Article, Attention Management, Cognitive Memory, Confusion, Decision Making, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Information overload, Lost Focus, Mindfulness, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Overload, Perception, Preoccupation, Risk, Safety, Selective Listening, Situational awareness / By Rich Gasaway

Before you get too upset and refuse to read this article, I’ll ask you to give me just two minutes to explain the situational awareness lesson behind this statement. The first premise is: We must acknowledge (and accept) that it is easy for drivers to get distracted and have their situational awareness impacted while talking …

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Twelve tips to improve situational awareness – SAM 383

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Attitude, Auditory exclusion, Close Call, Cognitive Memory, Command Support, Communications, Decision Making, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Hyper Vigilance, Information overload, Interruptions, Line of Duty Death, Long-Term Memory, Mindfulness, Miscommunications, Mission, Mission Myopia, Multitasking, Overload, Progress Reports, Radios, Repetition, Risk, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Sensory Conflict, Short Term Memory, Situational awareness, Size Up, Staffing, Task Fixation, Task Saturation, Teamwork, Vigilance / By Rich Gasaway

In this episode, a special guest (Santa) presents twelve tips to improve situational awareness while working in high-risk, high consequence environments. Merry Christmas everyone! I know everyone’s feeling particularly festive this time of year and ole Santa is feeling the situational awareness love. Surely, you’ve heard of the “Twelve Days of Christmas.” – You know …

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Short-Term Memory – SAM 367

Leave a Comment / Checklists, Confusion, Decision Making, Defiance, Expectations, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Frustration, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Information overload, Judgment, Mindfulness, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Overload, Overwhelm, Risk, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Short Term Memory, Simulation, Situational awareness, Size Up, Task Fixation, Task Saturation, Vigilance, Workload Management, Worksheets / By Rich Gasaway

In this episode, we preview the short-term memory chapter from the book, How Smart Workers Use Situational Awareness to Improve Safety. Short-term memory can create a formidable challenge to situational awareness. Long-term memory is huge, some might argue it’s limitless. Short-term memory, not so much. The capacity of the average person’s short-term memory is about …

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19 Ways Communications can Impact SA – SAM 359

Leave a Comment / Auditory exclusion, Checklists, Cognitive Memory, Command Location, Command Presence, Command Support, Communications, Confabulation, Confusion, Crew Resource Management, Culture, Decision Making, Disoriented, Expectations, Experience, Firefighter Situational Awareness, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Information overload, Interruptions, Mental Models, Mindfulness, Miscommunications, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Overload, Personnel location, Pre Arrival Lens, Progress Reports, Radios, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Sensory Conflict, Shared Mental Models, Situational awareness, Size Up, Standard Operating Procedures/Guidelines, Technology, Training, Vigilance / By Rich Gasaway

In this episode we discuss 19 ways that communications issues can impact Situational Awareness. First responders spend a lot of time together, on calls, in the station, and in many cases in social settings outside of work. All of this interaction builds relationships that allow responders to trust their lives to each other. We’ll …

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Information Overload – SAM 355

Leave a Comment / Assumptions, Attention Management, Communications, Decision Making, Disoriented, Expectations, Frustration, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Information overload, Judgment, Leadership, Long-Term Memory, Lost Focus, Mindfulness, Miscommunications, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Overload, Overwhelm, Preoccupation, Risk, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Shared Mental Models, Situational awareness, Stress, Tacit Knowledge, Task Saturation, Vigilance / By Rich Gasaway

This episode explores the capacity of the human brain to process sensory stimuli into short-term memory and the impact it can have on situational awareness. The San Francisco Fire Department conducted an internal review of the incident and issued a 156-page report on their findings. Many of the lessons relate to situational awareness and it …

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The Myth of Multitasking – SAM 346

Leave a Comment / Assumptions, Attention Management, Automatic Action, Checklists, Cognitive Memory, Competency, Confusion, Decision Making, Disoriented, Distractions and Interruptions, Expectations, Frustration, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Information overload, Interruptions, Judgment, Long-Term Memory, Lost Focus, Mind Drift, Mindfulness, Multitasking, Neuroscience, Overload, Overwhelm, Pattern Matching, Perception, Perception Of Reality, Prediction, Preoccupation, Risk, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Short Term Memory, Situational awareness, Task Fixation, Task Saturation, Vigilance, Worksheets / By Rich Gasaway

This episode explores the challenges workers face while operating in dynamically changing conditions that require sharing attention to multiple, concurrent activities – a.k.a., multitasking. If you are the type of person who can work on your notebook, listen to music on your iPod, talk on your cell phone and text message at the same time, …

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Confabulated Realities Impact Situational Awareness – SAM 342

Leave a Comment / Assumptions, Automatic Action, Biases, Confabulation, Confusion, Decision Making, Denial, Disoriented, Expectations, Experience, Explicit Knowledge, Hallucinations, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Judgment, Mental Models, Mindfulness, Miscommunications, Over Confident, Over Staffing, Pattern Matching, Perception, Perception Of Reality, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Situational awareness / By Rich Gasaway

This episode explores how your brain can make up, or confabulate, its own reality. A confabulated reality is one that we believe to be real but, in actuality, it is made up in our brain. The problem with this is we rarely are able to distinguish between a confabulated reality and true reality until something …

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The Jeff Bowen LODD Story, told by Scott Burnette. Part 2 – SAM 341

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Assumptions, Attention Management, Attitude, Automatic Action, Building Construction, Close Call, Communications, Competency, Complacency, Culture, Decision Making, Disoriented, Expectations, Experience, Goals, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Hyper Vigilance, Illness, Judgment, Line of Duty Death, Mayday, Mayday and RIT, Miscommunications, Mission, Mission Myopia, Personal Protective Equipment, Personnel location, Physical Fitness, Pre Arrival Lens, Progress Reports, Radios, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Shared Mental Models, Size Up, Staffing, Standard Operating Procedures/Guidelines, Stress, Teamwork, Time Distortion, Training, Tunnel Vision, Tunneled Senses, Vigilance, Workload Management / By Rich Gasaway

This episode is part 2 of a two-part interview with Asheville (NC) Fire Chief Scott Burnette, sharing the details and perspective on the LODD of Captain Jeff Bowen. On July 28, 2011, the Asheville Fire Department was forever changed by the tragic LODD of Captain Jeff Bowen. During this interview, Fire Chief Scott Burnette talks …

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The Jeff Bowen LODD Story, told by Scott Burnette. Part 1 – SAM 340

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Assumptions, Attention Management, Attitude, Automatic Action, Benchmarks, Building Construction, Close Call, Communications, Competency, Complacency, Culture, Disoriented, Expectations, Experience, Goals, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Hyper Vigilance, Illness, Judgment, Line of Duty Death, Mayday, Mayday and RIT, Miscommunications, Mission, Mission Myopia, Personal Protective Equipment, Personnel location, Physical Fitness, Pre Arrival Lens, Progress Reports, Radios, Risk, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Shared Mental Models, Situational awareness, Size Up, Staffing, Standard Operating Procedures/Guidelines, Stress, Task Fixation, Teamwork, Time Distortion, Training, Tunnel Vision, Tunneled Senses, Vigilance, Workload Management / By Rich Gasaway

This episode is part 1 of a two-part interview with Ashville (NC) Fire Chief Scott Burnette, sharing the details and perspective on the LODD of Captain Jeff Bowen. On July 28, 2011, the Asheville Fire Department was forever changed by the tragic LODD of Captain Jeff Bowen. During this interview, Fire Chief Scott Burnette talks …

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The John Glaser LODD Story, told by Ryan Pyle. Part 2 – SAM 339

Leave a Comment / Accountability, Assumptions, Attention Management, Attitude, Automatic Action, Benchmarks, Building Construction, Close Call, Communications, Competency, Complacency, Culture, Decision Making, Disoriented, Expectations, Experience, Goals, Human Behavior, Human Error, Human Factors, Hyper Vigilance, Illness, Judgment, Line of Duty Death, Mayday, Mayday and RIT, Miscommunications, Mission, Mission Myopia, Personal Protective Equipment, Personnel location, Physical Fitness, Pre Arrival Lens, Progress Reports, Radios, Risk, Risk Assessment, Risk Management, Safety, SAMatters Radio, Selective Listening, Shared Mental Models, Size Up, Staffing, Standard Operating Procedures/Guidelines, Stress, Task Fixation, Teamwork, Time Distortion, Training, Tunnel Vision, Tunneled Senses, Vigilance, Workload Management / By Rich Gasaway

In this episode I sat down for an interview with Shawnee (KS) Fire Battalion Chief Ryan Pyle to discuss a residential structure incident that resulted in the death of Firefighter John Glaser. Ryan discusses the details of this tragic incident and the lessons his department learned from it. This episode is part 2 of a …

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