Development of a Search and Rescue Simulation to Study the Effects of Prolonged Isolation on Team Decision Making

The goals of this project were to identify and investigate aspects of team and individual decision-making and risk-taking behaviors hypothesized to be most affected by prolonged isolation. A key premise driving our research approach is that effects of stressors that impact individual and team cognitive processes in an isolated, confined, and hazardous environment will be projected onto the performance of a simulation task. To elicit and investigate these team behaviors we developed a search and rescue task concept as a scenario domain that would be relevant for isolated crews. We modified the Distributed Dynamic Decision-making (DDD) simulator, a platform that has been extensively used for empirical research in team processes and taskwork performance, to portray the features of a search and rescue scenario and present the task components incorporated into that scenario. The resulting software is called DD-Search and Rescue (Version 1.0). To support the use of the DDD-Search and Rescue simulator in isolated experiment settings, we wrote a player's manual for teaching team members to operate the simulator and play the scenario. We then developed a research design and experiment plan that would allow quantitative measures of individual and team decision making skills using the DDD-Search and Rescue simulator as the experiment platform. A description of these activities and the associated materials that were produced under this contract are contained in this report

Innovative Measures for the Evaluation of Command and Control Architectures

Proceedings for the 1998 Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium Command and Control for the Next Millenium June 29-July1, 1998 Naval Postgraduate School Monterey, California Track 1 ArchitecturesSeveral principles of warfare have been developed through experience over time. These principles provide a framework that can be used to assess model-derived command and control architectures from a military perspective. This paper will dis-cuss and present analysis of data collected on participants’ ratings of three model-based archi-tectures on the principles of warfare to determine quantitative differences among the architectures. Comparisons of these ratings with critical dimen-sions used by modelers to optimize the architec-tures will be discussed, including feedback provid-ed during after-action reviews from military personnel who operated under these organizational architectures when responding to computer-driven scenarios. The objective was to compare the advantages and disadvantages of the three model-derived architectures vis-à- vis military principles.Cognitive and Neural Science Technology Division of ON

The Relationship Between The Theory Of Achievement Motivation And Performance On A Simple And A Complex Task.

PhDPsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/185212/2/6813303.pd

Workload Awareness

Teams, by definition, perform interdependent tasks that require team members to coordinate their decisions and actions in order to achieve their shared goals (Orasanu and Salas, 1993). In order to successfully achieve the level of coordination that is required for successful interdependent performance, team members need a shared awareness of the situation, and of the roles, tasks, and actions of the other team members. The existence of this “shared mental model ” among team members has been suggested as an explanatory mechanism for effective teams, and, as measured in various ways, has been shown to increase team performance (Cannon-Bowers, Salas, and Converse, 1993; Stout, Cannon-Bowers, Salas, and Milanovich, 1999). Despite its importance, it is difficult to measure the extent to which team members are successful in developing and maintaining a shared, accurate awareness of the situation and of each other’s roles. For distributed teams, with members who are not co-located, it is especially difficult both to develop and maintain this awareness and to measure it. The notion of team mutual awareness – the extent to which team members are informed of other team members’ behaviors – provides a measurable construct for assessing the presence of shared mental models. We propose a model, presented in Figure 1, that specifies three interrelated facets of team performance to provide a structure to assess team mutual awareness. Taskwork awareness refers to awareness of what tasks other team members are completing and how important these tasks are. Workload awareness refers to awareness of the loading that the Taskwork imposes on team members. Teamwork awareness, finally

When Do Organizations Need to Change (Part I)? Coping with Incongruence*

1999 Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium (CCRTS), June 29 - July 1, 1999, U.S. Naval War College, Rhode IslandDifferent organizational structures are better matched to certain mission types than others (organizational congruence). Consequently, one way to achieve superior mission effectiveness is to switch between organizational structures when circumstances dictate. However, little is known about the variables that signal the need for such structural adaptation. To explore this issue, we used a model-based design process to create mission scenarios that were either matched (congruent) or mismatched (incongruent) with two organizational structures (Functional, Divisional). Results indicated that, as predicted on the basis of the coordination requirements imposed by the model-based design process, performance in the incongruent cases was characterized by increased communication, increased perceived workload, and degraded performance. Given these overall results, we explored these data further by analyzing communication patterns to identify how the organizations attempted to cope with the congruence problem. Our results indicated that the communication strategies employed in the face of incongruence depended on organizational structure/mission scenario pairings, suggesting that the specific signals of the need for structural adaptation will likely depend on context.The research reported here was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Contract No. N00014-02-C- 0233, under the direction of Gerald Malecki.The research reported here was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Contract No. N00014-02-C- 0233, under the direction of Gerald Malecki

Impact of Simulator Out-The-Window Visual Display Resolution on Air-To-Ground Skill Performance

Previous research revealed no difference in air-to-air skill performance between instructor pilots who flew a simulator with a narrow out-the-window visual display field-of-view and instructor pilots who flew a simulator with a wide field-of-view. To evaluate the generalizability of these results to a different fidelity dimension, mission, and pilot type, the current study assessed the impact of out-the-window visual display resolution on air-to-ground skill performance of less experienced pilots. In the current study, 18 F/A-18 Fleet Replacement Squadron pilots flew air-to-ground training missions in two simulators that differed in their visual display resolution. F/A-18 subject matter experts assessed pilot performance during the missions using three observer-based instruments. Results revealed a difference in performance between pilots who flew the simulator with a lower-resolution display and pilots who flew the simulator with a higher-resolution display for two out of 12 air-to-ground skills. We discuss the implications of our findings for simulator acquisition

From Laboratory to Field—Testing A2C2 Concepts During Global Warfare Exercises

2000 Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium (CCRTS), June 11-13, 2000, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CAGlobal Wargame '99 offered the A2C2 team a unique opportunity to witness a large-scale exploration of Network Centric Warfare (NCW) concepts in the context of an extended operational exercise. The team became involved in Global `99 three months prior to the game through their interaction with a team of warfighters with whom they conducted a training exercise at the Naval Postgraduate School entitled "Bridge to Global `99." During that training exercise, the A2C2 modeling team introduced a model-based organizational structure designed to optimally support the demands of the Global scenario. CCG1 and a staff of roughly 30 officers played the organization in a laboratory at the Naval Postgraduate School while the A2C2 assessment team observed, collected a range of performance measures, provided detailed feedback about the impacts of Information Technology (IT) tools, assessed the function of the organization relative to model predictions, and captured team processes that evolved and improved as the game progressed. The positive outcome of this experience led CCG1 to recommend a variation on the A2C2 architecture for the Global Wargame itself. This presented the A2C2 team with an unprecedented opportunity to follow a model-based architecture from the laboratory to the field. Although Global '99 was not an experiment in the classical sense, the exercise did manipulate three central components of NCW: model-driven innovations in organizational design, new C2 processes to match changes in command organization, and the availability of advanced information technologies and collaboration tools. This paper describes Global Wargame `99 from the A2C2 perspective, including the methods they used there to capture data and the lessons they learned from the experience

Adaptive Architectures for Command and Control: Toward An Empirical Evaluation of Organizational Congruence and Adaptation

Presentation to the 71st Military Operations Research Society Symposium. Marine Corps Base Quantico, VA. 10-12 June, 2003.How do teams cope with a misalignment between their organizational structures and mission requirements? Through a series of empirical and modeling efforts, our long-term goal is to understand the nature of organizational congruence, and to predict and measure the effects of a lack of congruence on the behaviors of organizations as they strive to adapt. In this paper, we present a series of lessons learned based on a pilot experiment in which we explored the performance of two organizations (functional and divisional) performing a single mission, which in this case, was not designed to favor a particular organization. The lessons learned here suggest a variety of empirical strategies to further our investigations, including measures of performance, rigorous attention to team and mission definitions, and precise planning of training structure. Our findings suggest that each of these factors has the potential to profoundly influence the results, reflecting the multiple factors that shape team performance.The research reported here was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Contract No. N00014-99-C-0255,under the direction of Gerald MaleckiThe research reported here was sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, Contract No. N00014-99-C-0255,under the direction of Gerald Maleck

Inducing Adaptation in Organizations: Concept and Experiment Design

The Command & Control Research & Technology Symposium, SPAWAR, San Diego, CA June 15 - 17, 2004Mission performance is likely to be high when organizational structures are “congruent” with the mission and degraded when organizational structures are “incongruent” with the mission. All else being equal, it is to an organization’s advantage to monitor the fit between its structure and mission, and to alter its structure when a misfit is identified. We afforded teams the opportunity to adapt their organizational structure to changes in the mission. In the forced case, teams had to allocate new assets to deal with a SCUD threat entering theater. In another situation, the team could adapt their organizational structure to a mission that had grown incongruent with that structure. Our primary interest was this adaptation process. Results indicate that the teams did adapt; frequently, they made many small changes to adjust workload and to compensate for weak team members. Less frequently, they made major changes in response to changing mission and task requirements. Teams appeared reluctant to make the larger changes necessary to realign organizational structure and mission. This reluctance stems in part from their concern with the cost of change and in part from a difficultly in understanding organizational structures and the ramifications of changes made to the structures. Enhanced training and model driven decision aids may help to ameliorate the problems