Intuitive decision making (IDM) processes allow warfighters to synthesize great quantities of information at the speed required to act intelligently in highly complex, uncertain, and time-constrained tactical situations. A driver on combat patrol, for instance, does not have the time to consciously deliberate over the warning signs of an ambush, but must instead rely on the more immediate sense of intuition. Unfortunately, effective IDM only emerges through extensive experience, which for a warfighter operating in the real world can be both costly and life-threatening. This paper reports on the effectiveness of perceptual augmentation for accelerating the acquisition of the situation recognition capabilities essential to intuition and for improving IDM. In two human studies (n=24 and n=60) involving a naturalistic, rapid situation categorization task (cf. Smith et al., 2017), we evaluated visual training aids designed to implicitly a) direct focus to the salient features of the situation, b) broaden attention to non-redundant perceptual inputs, and c) surface information from working memory that would otherwise be less accessible to IDM processes. Effects are measured by comparing subjects receiving visual assistance to those not. Our findings suggest that it is possible to accelerate pattern learning by augmenting perception with stimuli that communicate information otherwise available only in working memory and by drawing attention to significant contextual cues. We also demonstrate that perceptual attention can be manipulated with subtle cues, apparently outside of conscious awareness—a capability that may prove essential in developing simulation-based implicit training methods that trigger the subconscious cognitive pathways hypothesized (Luu et al., 2010; Reber, 2013; Wan et al., 2011) to be associated with IDM. Finally, we find significant differences between intuitive and more deliberate subjects in how they allocate attentional resources (specifically eye gaze), raising the possibility that further study of the attentional behavior of rapid decision makers may lead to improved methods for cultivating effective IDM.