I joined the list several weeks ago, and so far have enjoyed just 'listening
in'.
I'm very interested on the impact of background noise on SA in an operations
room context. A recent suggestion by engineering staff in a development
project was that it would be OK for the ops room to be very noisy, provided
the operators had great ANR headsets to communicate with. As an operator
representative (and de facto human factors rep) this seems intuitively false
to me - I know that a lot of SA is derived from being able to hear what's
happening around the room. Even if I can't hear exactly what's being said,
I can tell the general level of activity, and from knowing WHO is busy, I
have some idea what's happening outside my area of focus. Also there's no
beating the ability to YELL at somebody if you really need to get an urgent
message across.
My question to the group is: have there been any studies that would support
(or negate) such a contention? Unfortunately the harsh reality is that the
operator's opinion isn't good enough when it creates requirements that will
cost taxpayers' money.
Thanks in anticipation,
Tracey Bryan
Bryan Consulting
Brisbane, Australia
bryanconsulting_at_pobox.com