Examining Trust and Reliance in Collaborations between Humans and Automated Agents

Human trust and reliance in artificial agents is critical to effective collaboration in mixed human computer teams. Understanding the conditions under which humans trust and rely upon automated agent recommendations is important as trust is one of the mechanisms that allow people to interact effectively with a variety of teammates. We conducted exploratory research to investigate how personality characteristics and uncertainty conditions affect human-machine interactions. Participants were asked to determine if two images depicted the same or different people, while simultaneously considering the recommendation of an automated agent. Results of this effort demonstrated a correlation between judgements of agent expertise and user trust. In addition, we found that in conditions of high and low uncertainty, the decision outcomes of participants moved significantly in the direction of the agent’s recommendation. Differences in reported trust in the agent were observed in individuals with low and high levels of extraversion

Building an International Network: International Academic Partnerships for Science and Security

Slides for the presentation presented at the ENVISION24 Conference Session 8: Lighting Talks: Transformative Workforce Developmen

Anger from Within: The Role of Emotions in Disengagement from Violent Extremism

There is growing recognition about the similarities between generic criminality and violent extremism. Using data derived from a unique set of in-depth life history interviews with 40 former U.S. white supremacists, as well as previous studies of criminal desistance, we examine the emotional valence that characterizes actors\u27 descriptions of the disengagement process. More specifically, results suggest that negative emotions (i.e., anger and frustration) directed toward the extremist group and oneself function as a catalyst for disengagement. Negative emotions become a source of motivation in re-evaluating the relative importance of the group as it relates to the individual. Ultimately, the reevaluation of the group is essential to the decision to disengage from violent extremism

One Year Later: The Impact of the Oct. 7 Attack in the United States

NCITE products include analytical reports, white papers, reachback reports, and requests for information (RFIs) that provide in-depth, expert analysis of critical topics facing counterterrorism and homeland security. Our mission is to provide expert analysis on timely issues for stakeholders and the U.S. government. This reachback report includes material from 27 experts in the NCITE network, writing from their professional perspectives on the impact in the U.S. of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel and the ensuing war. This report was produced to address an important topic to homeland security: assessing the extremist threat landscape in the U.S. one year following a major global terrorist attack. Material was gathered via written responses throughout September 2024 and has been edited for length and clarity

Do Machines Replicate Humans? Toward a Unified Understanding of Radicalizing Content on the Open Social Web

The advent of the Internet inadvertently augmented the functioning and success of violent extremist organizations. Terrorist organizations like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) use the Internet to project their message to a global audience. The majority of research and practice on web‐based terrorist propaganda uses human coders to classify content, raising serious concerns such as burnout, mental stress, and reliability of the coded data. More recently, technology platforms and researchers have started to examine the online content using automated classification procedures. However, there are questions about the robustness of automated procedures, given insufficient research comparing and contextualizing the difference between human and machine coding. This article compares output of three text analytics packages with that of human coders on a sample of one hundred nonindexed web pages associated with ISIS. We find that prevalent topics (e.g., holy war) are accurately detected by the three packages whereas nuanced concepts (Lone Wolf attacks) are generally missed. Our findings suggest that naïve approaches of standard applications do not approximate human understanding, and therefore consumption, of radicalizing content. Before radicalizing content can be automatically detected, we need a closer approximation to human understanding

Equifinality and the Key Role it Plays in Understanding the Future of Leadership

As organizations continue to increase in diversity across a range of demographic, value-based, and attitudinal variables, there can be a natural tension around differing styles and approaches to leading. We offer that these differences need not necessarily serve as a source of conflict if organizations are able to embrace the principle of equifinality. Equifinality, applied to leadership, represents the notion that there is more than one pathway to leading successfully. By focusing on equifinality as a core principle, stylistic differences can add to the fabric of organizational life rather than being a source of tension in it. We offer an example of an equifinality based approach to leading, the charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic (CIP) model to illustrate equifinality successfully applied as a core principle. We conclude by offering practical guidance on how to effectively apply an equifinality approach to leadership in organizations

Research Challenges in Combating Terrorist Use of Explosives in the United States 2024

As expressed in the original 2008 report, Research Challenges in Combating Terrorist Use of Explosives in the United States, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are generally easy to develop, difficult to combat, and cause disproportionate physical and psychological harm to the citizenry. Research, development, test, and evaluation options to assist domestic counter-IED efforts are plentiful, easily overwhelming the ability of government and industry to fund. This updated report outlines 10 challenge areas where concentrated research can be most beneficial when combating IED use in the homeland and is a summation of interagency efforts to analyze operational capabilities and gaps, as well as their associated research needs

Opening Remarks: Recap of Day 1 Themes

At NCITE\u27s annual conference, Director Gina Ligon, Ph.D., discussed highlights from the first day of presentations and outlined priorities for future counterterrorism research

Should START Researchers Embrace the Brain?

What, if anything, can neuroscience offer us as scholars interested in extremist behavior? Some observers claim that we have learned more about the brain in the past decade than all previous decades combined (National Institute of Health, 2012). Despite what are sometimes breathtaking new insights regarding the internal connections and functioning of the brain, there is reason for caution with extending beyond what neuroscience findings can actually tell us. Part of the need for this caution involves a variety of methodological and statistical issues that have not yet been resolved, while other concerns involve ethical and policy implications related to the use of neuroimaging data