Awareness
Awareness in philosophy and psychology is a concept about knowing, perceiving and being cognizant of events.[1] Another definition describes it as a state wherein a subject is aware of some information when that information is directly available to bring to bear in the direction of a wide range of behavioral actions.[2] The concept is often synonymous to consciousness and is also understood as being consciousness itself.[3]
"Aware" redirects here. For other uses, see Aware (disambiguation).The states of awareness are also associated with the states of experience so that the structure represented in awareness is mirrored in the structure of experience.[2]
Concept[edit]
Awareness is a relative concept. It may be focused on an internal state, such as a visceral feeling, or on external events by way of sensory perception.[3] It is analogous to sensing something, a process distinguished from observing and perceiving (which involves a basic process of acquainting with the items we perceive).[4] Awareness or "to sense" can be described as something that occurs when the brain is activated in certain ways, such as when the color red is what is seen once the retina is stimulated by light waves.[4] This conceptualization is posited amid the difficulty in developing an analytic definition of awareness or sensory awareness.[4]
Awareness is also associated with consciousness in the sense that this concept denotes a fundamental experience such as a feeling or intuition that accompanies the experience of phenomena.[5] Specifically, this is referred to as awareness of experience. As for consciousness, it has been postulated to undergo continuously changing levels.[6]
Mocenni C. and Bizzarri F. wrote:[7] "The awareness literature can be organized around three core concepts: cognitive awareness[8] which corresponds to the accurate and deep individual's understanding of one's perception and thinking. The second perspective argues that awareness is multilevel[9] considering both conscious and unconscious, with an end-stage of awareness... The third considers awareness concerning the recognition of the feelings of others."[10]
Peripheral awareness[edit]
Peripheral awareness refers to the human ability to process information at the periphery of attention, such as acknowledging distant sounds of people outside while siting indoors and concentrating on a specific task such as reading.[11][12] Peripheral vision is defined as the perception of visual stimuli at or near the edge of the field of vision and the capacity to perceive such stimuli. [13] Peripheral awareness is the capacity to perceive stimuli that is not directly in front of us and is in relation to all five senses.
This type of awareness allows for being prepared to respond to unexpected events. For example, walking down a busy street while talking to a friend, peripheral awareness will allow for alertness to potential hazards such as cars or pedestrians coming into proximity that may not have been noticed otherwise.
Studies have shown having peripheral awareness enhances overall cognition. By improving peripheral awareness, overall quality of life and productivity will consequently be improved.
In cooperative settings, awareness is a term used to denote "knowledge created through the interaction of an agent and its environment — in simple terms 'knowing what is going on'".[26] In this setting, awareness is meant to convey how individuals monitor and perceive the information surrounding their colleagues and the environment they are in. This information is incredibly useful and critical to the performance and success of collaborations.[27][28] Awareness can be further defined by breaking it down into a set of characteristics:[29]
Different categories of awareness have been suggested based on the type of information being obtained or maintained:[30]
These categories are not mutually exclusive, as there can be significant overlap in what a particular type of awareness might be considered. Rather, these categories serve to help understand what knowledge might be conveyed by a particular type of awareness or how that knowledge might be conveyed. Workspace awareness is of particular interest to the CSCW community, due to the transition of workspaces from physical to virtual environments.
While the type of awareness above refers to knowledge a person might need in a particular situation, context awareness and location awareness refer to information a computer system might need in a particular situation. These concepts of large importance especially for AAA (authentication, authorization, accounting) applications.
The term of location awareness still is gaining momentum with the growth of ubiquitous computing. First defined by networked work positions (network location awareness), it has been extended to mobile phones and other mobile communicable entities. The term covers a common interest in whereabouts of remote entities, especially individuals and their cohesion in operation. The term of context awareness is a superset including the concept of location awareness. It extends the awareness to context features of an operational target as well as to the context of an operational area.
Awareness versus attention[edit]
Some scientists have proposed that awareness is closely related and in some ways synonymous with attention[34][35] while others have argued that they are different.[36] There is evidence to demonstrate that awareness and attention have distinct neural correlates, though the majority of research analyses the attention, awareness, and perception of only visual stimuli.[37]
