shared SA across members. Each of these four factors—requirements, devices, mechanisms and processes—act to help build team and shared SA. Team SA requirements – the degree to which the team members know which information needs to be shared, including their higher level assessments and projections (which are usually not otherwise available to fellow team members), and information on team members' task status and current capabilities. Team SA devices – the devices available for sharing this information, which can include direct communication (both verbal and non-verbal), shared displays (e.g., visual or audio displays, or tactile devices), or a shared environment. As non-verbal communication, such as gestures and display of local artifacts, and a shared environment are usually not available in distributed teams, this places far more emphasis on verbal communication and communication technologies for creating shared information displays. Team SA mechanisms – the degree to which team members possess mechanisms, such as shared mental models, which support their ability to interpret information in the same way and make accurate projections regarding each other's actions. The possession of shared mental models can greatly facilitate communication and coordination in team settings. Team SA processes – the degree to which team members engage in effective processes for sharing SA information which may include a group norm of questioning assumptions, checking each other for conflicting information or perceptions, setting up coordination and prioritization of tasks, and establishing contingency planning among others. In time critical decision-making processes There are many industries where it is critical to make a correct decision within a strict time limit, based on the decision-maker's knowledge of the current situation: for example air traffic controllers or medical providers (e.g. anesthesiologists). In these situations it is common that the key decision maker is supported by other team members or by complex monitoring systems feeding them information, which can involve multiple sources and formats of information. Even in these time-critical situations, the importance of having situation awareness (SA) is not constant: i.e. it is more critical to the outcome to have better SA for non-standard situations, such as points of high information traffic, extraneous activity and unforeseeable events. These ‘points of fracture’ are likely to cause additional workload on the individuals and therefore affect their SA and the time to make the decision. At the critical point the perceived situational awareness utilized to make the decision is directly affected by the cognitive workload to