Technical Report


Book Description




Methods for Training Cognitive Skills in Battlefield Situation Assessment


Book Description

Situation assessment provides the basis for decisions by battlefield commanders and their staff during both planning and operations. In previous work, we developed a framework for battlefield commanders' situation assessment from interviews with active-duty command staff and from published work in cognitive psychology. The present report describes methods for training cognitive skills in situation assessment based on that framework. Two training methods have been developed, both of which focus on metacognitive skills involved in verifying and improving assessments and plans. The first method helps officers find and assess the reliability of hidden assumptions. It includes a devils' advocate technique that forces officers to imagine that their assessment is wrong and to explain why, as well as techniques for handling potential problems that are found. The second method helps officers find and resolve conflicting evidence. It includes techniques for trying to explain the conflicting data in terms of the current assessment, evaluating the plausibility of the explanations, and generating alternative assessments. The training techniques have been experimentally tested with active-duty officers, and the results of that testing are described in a companion report.




Decision Making in Aviation


Book Description

Decision making pervades every aspect of life: people make hundreds of decisions every day. The vast majority of these are trivial and without a right or wrong answer. In some respects there is also nothing extraordinary about pilot decision making. It is only the setting that is different - the underlying cognitive processes are just the same. However, it is the context and the consequences of a poor decision which serve to differentiate aeronautical decision making. Decisions on the flight deck are often made with incomplete information and while under time pressure. The implications for inadequate performance is much more serious than in many other professions. Poor decisions are implicated in over half of all aviation accidents. This volume contains key papers published over the last 25 years providing an overview of the major paradigms by which aeronautical decision making has been investigated. Furthermore, decision making does not occur in isolation. It is a joint function of the flight tasks; knowledge; equipment on the flight deck and other stressors. In this volume of collected papers, works from leading authors in the field consider all these aspects of aeronautical decision making.




The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Engineering


Book Description

This handbook is the first to provide comprehensive coverage of original state-of-the-science research, analysis, and design of integrated, human-technology systems.




Research Report


Book Description




Naturalistic Decision Making


Book Description

If you aren't using the term naturalistic decision making, or NDM, you soon will be. Even as a very young field, NDM has already had far-reaching applications in areas as diverse as management, aviation, health care, nuclear power, military command and control, corporate teamwork, and manufacturing. Put simply, NDM is the way people use their experience to make decisions in the context of a job or task. Of particular interest to NDM researchers are the effects of high-stake consequences, shifting goals, incomplete information, time pressure, uncertainty, and other conditions that are present in most of today's work places and that add to the complexity of decision making. Applications of NDM research findings target decision aids and training that help people in their decision-making processes. This book reports the findings of top NDM researchers, as well as many of their current applications. In addition, the book offers a historical perspective on the emergence of this new paradigm, describes recent theoretical and methodological advancements, and points to future developments. It was written for people interested in decision making research and applications relative to a diverse array of work settings and products such as human-computer interfaces, decision support systems, individual and team training, product designs, and organizational development and planning.










Handbook of Distributed Team Cognition


Book Description

Contemporary society is held together by interactive groups and teams carrying out work to accomplish various intentions and purposes often within challenging and ill-defined environments. Cooperative work is accomplished through the synergy of human teamwork and technological innovation within domains such as health and medicine; cyber security; transportation; command, control, communication, and intelligence; aviation; manufacturing; criminal justice; space exploration; and emergency crisis management. Distributed team cognition is ubiquitous across and within each of these domains in myriad ways. The Handbook of Distributed Team Cognition provides three volumes that delve into the intricacies of research findings in terms of how cognition is embodied within specific environments while being distributed across time, space, information, people, and technologies. Distributed team cognition is examined from broad, interdisciplinary perspectives and developed using different themes and worldviews. Foundations and Theoretical Perspectives of Distributed Teams Cognition provides an informed view of the history and foundations underlying the development of the field while looking at the theoretical significance of research. Contemporary Research: Models, Methodologies, and Measures in Distributed Team Cognition strengthens these foundations and theories by looking at how research has evolved through the use of different experiments, methods, measures, and models. Fields of Practice and Applied Solutions within Distributed Teams Cognition considers the importance of technological support of teamwork and what it means for applied systems and specific fields of practice. Together these three volumes entwine a comprehensive knowledge of distributed team cognition that is invaluable for professors, scientists, engineers, designers, specialists, and students alike who need specific information regarding history, cognitive science, experimental studies, research approaches, measures and analytics, digital collaborative technologies and intelligent agents, and real world applications; all of which have led to a dynamic revolution in cooperative work / teamwork in both theory and practice.