Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Team situation awareness'

For Command and Control teams Situation Awareness forms an important part of their ability to execute their tasks. It is therefore a crucial consideration in Command and Control systems to understand how best to support and design these systems. Despite a considerable amount of attention since the 1980s no consensus has yet been reached concerning the nature of team SA. Three schools of thought on SA: the Individualistic, the Engineering and the System Ergonomics, provide three different approaches to understanding the phenomenon of SA and its measurement. This thesis argues that the System Ergonomics school of thought, with the theory of Distributed SA, provides the most resilient approach to understanding team SA. This thesis advances and validates the theory of Distributed SA. A review of SA theory is presented, in which particular attention is given to Distributed SA. Drawing on the distributed cognition and systems theories Distributed SA takes the interaction between agents and their environment into account when exploring how SA emerges, followed by a review of measures utilised for assessing Distributed SA. The methods utilised in this work, namely the Critical Decision Method and Communications Analysis, are assessed in terms of their reliability and validity of eliciting Distributed SA. The findings suggested that methods to assess team SA can be tailored to collect data at different phases of activity. It was concluded that the Hierarchical Task Analysis may be applied before, Communication Analysis during and the Critical Decision Method after Command and Control activity. An experiment was performed to test the assumption that a relationship exists between organisational structure and team performance and between Distributed SA and team performance. Conclusive differences were found between different organisational structures and performance lending support to the literature. Distributed SA was found to be strongly correlated with good task performance and moderately negatively correlated with poor task performance. The relationship appeared to be mediated by organisational structure. Furthermore, a series of case studies are used to explore the components of Distributed SA, i.e. transactional and compatible SA. The analysis showed that more effective teams were characterised by a high volume of communications and had a different pattern of transactions compared to less effective teams. The findings are used to contribute to the existing debate concerning team SA and to advance the theory of Distributed SA.

The current study aimed at investigating the concepts of team situation awareness, mental models, and team processes in relation to performance in the complex, dynamic environment of breathing apparatus rescues. Data was collected during exercises at Ågesta training center through questionnaires and after action reviews. 28 firemen and 5 instructors participated in the exercises. Also, a stimulated recall interview was conducted with 2 of the firemen that had participated in one of the exercises. The different data collection methods all indicated that well-developed mental models or a high degree of pre-task knowledge affected performance in a positive way. Moreover, a multiple regression analysis showed that both pre-task knowledge and team processes significantly can predict performance. The results of the analysis of team situation awareness in relation to performance were fairly ambiguous. Therefore, further research is needed to establish the relation between these concepts in the domain at matter.

Situation Awareness (SA) is critical commodity for teams working in complex sociotechnical systems and is thus a fundamental consideration in collaborative system design and evaluation. Despite this, SA remains predominantly an individual construct, with the majority of models and measures focused on SA from an individual perspective. In comparison, team SA has received much less attention and this thesis argues that further work is required in the area both in relation to the development of theoretical perspectives and of valid measures, and to the development of guidelines for system, training and procedure design. This thesis advances team SA theory and measurement by further investigating a recently proposed model of SA in complex collaborative environments, the Distributed Situation Awareness (DSA) approach, and by testing a new methodology for representing and analysing DSA during real world collaborative activities. A review of SA theory and SA measurement approaches is presented. Following this, the DSA theory and propositional network assessment methodology are outlined and a series of case studies on DSA during real world collaborative activities in the military and civil domains are presented. The findings are subsequently used to explore the concept of DSA and the sub-concepts of compatible and transactive SA. In conclusion, a model of DSA in complex collaborative systems is presented, and a series of system design guidelines for supporting DSA are outlined.

While the concept of situation awareness have received a lot of attention over the past 15 years and many different measures have been developed and tested, the concepts of team situation awareness and shared situation awareness have not gotten as much attention and less progress has been made in developing a meaningful and validated measure. Thus, the purpose of this study is to operationalize the concept of shared situation awareness and test its consequences and relation to other concepts. In this study a new measure for shared situation awareness was developed and its potential evaluated. The measure was a shared priorities measure where the participants of the study each wrote down and rank ordered five factors they thought were important for good team performance in the situation. The factors were then scrambled and handed over to the other participant who once again ordered them according to priority. The correspondence between the two participants’ ratings was hypothesized to correlate with shared situation awareness. The results show that the shared priorities measure in this study did not relate to shared situation awareness. Several methodological concerns was identified which could have affected the results. The measure did relate to subjective ratings of cooperation which is very interesting and it is suggested that the measure captured aspects of teamwork. The shared priorities measure was easy to employ, required little preparation, has a high face-validity and is a promising addition to team research.
Under de senaste 15 åren har konceptet situationsmedvetande uppmärksammats en hel del, och många mått har utvecklats och blivit testade. Däremot har inte konceptet delat situationsmedvetande kommit lika långt i form av metodutveckling och validering. Syftet med denna rapport är att operationalisera begreppet delat situationsmedvetande och pröva det mot andra koncept. Inom ramen för detta arbete utvecklades ett nytt mått för delat situationsmedvetande som också testades empiriskt. Måttet mäter hur väl ett team har delade prioriteringar. Varje deltagare genererar fem faktorer för vad som är viktigt för god teamprestation i situationen och rangordnar dem i prioritetsordning. Dessa faktorer blandades sen om och delas ut till den andre teammedlemmen som i sin tur rangordnar faktorerna i prioritetsordning. Hur väl faktorernas rangordning korresponderar med varandra antogs vara ett mått på teamets delade situationsmedvetande. Resultatet visar att rangordningsmåttet inte har något samband med subjektivt bedömt delat situationsmedvetande. Flera metodologiska problem identifierades som kan ha påverkat resultatet. Däremot korrelerade rangordningsmåttet med hur väl samarbetet i teamet ansågs fungera, vilket tyder på att måttet fångar aspekter av hur teamet fungerar som team. Rangordningsmåttet var enkelt att använda, krävde lite förberedelse, har hög face-validity och verkar vara en möjlig väg att fortsätta studera team.

The use of autonomous robots in our society is increasing every day and a robot is no longer seen as a tool but as a team member. The robots are now working side by side with us and provide assistance during dangerous operations where humans otherwise are at risk. This development has in turn increased the need of robots with more human-awareness. Therefore, this master thesis aims at contributing to the enhancement of human-aware robotics. Specifically, we are investigating the possibilities of equipping autonomous robots with the capability of assessing and detecting activities in human teams. This capability could, for instance, be used in the robot's reasoning and planning components to create better plans that ultimately would result in improved human-robot teamwork performance. we propose to improve existing teamwork activity recognizers by adding intangible features, such as stress, motivation and focus, originating from human behavior models. Hidden markov models have earlier been proven very efficient for activity recognition and have therefore been utilized in this work as a method for classification of behaviors. In order for a robot to provide effective assistance to a human team it must not only consider spatio-temporal parameters for team members but also the psychological.To assess psychological parameters this master thesis suggests to use the body signals of team members. Body signals such as heart rate and skin conductance. Combined with the body signals we investigate the possibility of using System Dynamics models to interpret the current psychological states of the human team members, thus enhancing the human-awareness of a robot.
Användningen av autonoma robotar i vårt samhälle ökar varje dag och en robot ses inte längre som ett verktyg utan som en gruppmedlem. Robotarna arbetar nu sida vid sida med oss och ger oss stöd under farliga arbeten där människor annars är utsatta för risker. Denna utveckling har i sin tur ökat behovet av robotar med mer människo-medvetenhet. Därför är målet med detta examensarbete att bidra till en stärkt människo-medvetenhet hos robotar. Specifikt undersöker vi möjligheterna att utrusta autonoma robotar med förmågan att bedöma och upptäcka olika beteenden hos mänskliga lag. Denna förmåga skulle till exempel kunna användas i robotens resonemang och planering för att ta beslut och i sin tur förbättra samarbetet mellan människa och robot. Vi föreslår att förbättra befintliga aktivitetsidentifierare genom att tillföra förmågan att tolka immateriella beteenden hos människan, såsom stress, motivation och fokus. Att kunna urskilja lagaktiviteter inom ett mänskligt lag är grundläggande för en robot som ska vara till stöd för laget. Dolda markovmodeller har tidigare visat sig vara mycket effektiva för just aktivitetsidentifiering och har därför använts i detta arbete. För att en robot ska kunna ha möjlighet att ge ett effektivt stöd till ett mänskligtlag måste den inte bara ta hänsyn till rumsliga parametrar hos lagmedlemmarna utan även de psykologiska. För att tyda psykologiska parametrar hos människor förespråkar denna masteravhandling utnyttjandet av mänskliga kroppssignaler. Signaler så som hjärtfrekvens och hudkonduktans. Kombinerat med kroppenssignalerar påvisar vi möjligheten att använda systemdynamiksmodeller för att tolka immateriella beteenden, vilket i sin tur kan stärka människo-medvetenheten hos en robot.

The thesis work was conducted in Stockholm, Kista at the department of Informatics and Aero System at Swedish Defence Research Agency.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of distracted practice across the healthcare team. Definition: Distracted practice is the diversion of a portion of available cognitive resources that may be needed to effectively perform/carry out the current activity. Background: Distracted practice is the result of individuals interacting with the healthcare team, the environment and technology in the performance of their jobs. The resultant behaviors can lead to error and affect patient safety. Methods: A qualitative descriptive (QD) approach was used that integrated observations with semi-structured interviews. The conceptual framework was based on the distracted driving model and a completed concept analysis. Results: There were 22 observation sessions and 32 interviews (12 RNs, 11 MDs, and 9 Pharmacists) completed between December, 2014 and July 2015. Results suggested that distracted practice is based on the main theme of cognitive resources which varies by the subthemes of individual differences; environmental disruptions; team awareness; and “rush mode”/time pressure. Conclusions and Implications: Distracted practice is an individual human experience that occurs when there are not enough cognitive resources available to effectively complete the task at hand. In that moment an individual shifts from thinking critically, being able to complete their current task without error, to not thinking critically and working in an automatic mode. This is when errors occur. Additional research is needed to evaluate intervention strategies to reduce and prevent distracted practice.

Swedish nuclear power plant control room crews have training sessions in full scope simulators every year. These sessions are designed to prepare operators to cope with incidents and accidents. The aim is to develop operators’ knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to operate the nuclear power plant in a safe manner. Training sessions is an opportunity to practice and develop the crews’ teamwork, decision processes and working strategies. The purpose of this study was to explore if and how the instrument Shared Priorities can support training of nuclear power plant control room crews. Shared Priorities is an instrument to measure teams’ shared awareness of a situation and has in earlier studies been used in military and student teams. During the simulator re-training period of control room crews, 14 crews used the instrument Shared Priorities in one or two of their training scenarios. The instrument consists of two steps. Firstly, crew members generate and prioritise a list of five items they think are most important for the crew to cope with in the scenarios current situation. They also rank another crew member’s list. Secondly, the crews and instructors perform a focus group discussion based on the generated lists. Results from questionnaires, focus group discussions and an interview with instructors showed that operators and instructors believe that Shared Priorities can support their training in several ways. Crews see meetings and other disseminations of information as an essential part of maintaining shared understanding of different situations. They believe the instrument may help crews reflect upon and develop their meeting procedures. Operators and instructors also believe that by using the instrument it can help crews to increase their understanding of having a shared situation understanding and shared vision. However the procedure when using Shared Priorities has to be modified in order to be able to support crews’ training in an optimal way.

Practical drift is defined as the unintentional adaptation of routine behaviors from written procedure. The occurrence of practical drift can result in catastrophic disaster in high-reliability organizations (e.g. the military, emergency medicine, space exploration). Given the lack of empirical research on practical drift, this research sought to develop a better understanding by investigating ways to assess and stop the process in high-reliability organizations. An introductory literature review was conducted to investigate the variables that play a role in the occurrence of practical drift in teams. Research was guided by the input-throughput-output model of team adaptation posed by Burke, Stagl, Salas, Pierce, and Kendall (2006). It demonstrates relationships supported by the results of the literature review and the Burke and colleagues (2006) model denoting potential indicators of practical drift in teams. Research centralized on the core processes and emergent states of the adaptive cycle; namely, shared mental models, team situation awareness, and coordination. The resulting model shows the relationship of procedure—practice coupling demands misfit and maladaptive violations of procedure being mediated by shared mental models, team situation awareness, and coordination. Shared mental models also lead to team situation awareness, and both depict a mutual, positive relationship with coordination. The cycle restarts when an error caused by maladaptive violations of procedure creates a greater misfit between procedural demands and practical demands. This movement toward a theory of practical drift in teams provides a conceptual framework and testable propositions for future research to build from, giving practical avenues to predict and prevent accidents resulting from drift in high-reliability organizations. Suggestions for future research are also discussed, including possible directions to explore. By examining the relationships reflected in the new model, steps can be taken to counteract organizational failures in the process of practical drift in teams.
B.S.
Bachelors
Psychology
Sciences

L’évolution des technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC) a permis le développement du travail collaboratif dans quasiment tous les secteurs de l’activité humaine. Pour assurer la performance du collectif et minimiser le risque d’erreurs, il est crucial que les individus qui collaborent partagent une même représentation de la situation dans laquelle ils sont engagés. Ceci est d’autant plus vrai en situation de crise militaire, comme il en existe au sein des structures de commandement et contrôle d’opérations (C2).Dans un environnement marqué par la complexité grandissante des conflits, l’enjeu est aujourd’hui à la fois scientifique et hautement applicatif. L’avancée de l’étude de la cognition collective, cœur du travail collaboratif, est porteuse d’un potentiel certain qui doit se traduire par des applications concrètes au service de l’optimisation de la gestion et de la réalisation des tâches collectives. L’évaluation en temps réel de la cognition des individus et des équipes permet d’envisager des outils et des systèmes adaptatifs pour gagner en efficacité, en performance et en agilité. Face à ces enjeux, notre objectif, sur commande de la DGA, est de trouver des mesures appropriées qui permettraient une évaluation de la dynamique du partage des consciences de situation, dans le contexte très contraignant des salles de commandement et de contrôle, qui nécessite la plus faible instrumentation possible des opérateurs.Notre contribution au domaine est double. D’une part nous proposons le concept de synchronie des consciences de situation, pour soutenir le développement théorique de l’étude de la dynamique de partage de conscience de situation. D’autre part nous mettons en évidence l’importance d’adopter une méthodologie d’ingénierie cognitique, dans une perspective de transposition des connaissances de laboratoire à une situation d’application complexe, s’apparentant autant que possible à l’environnement réel de prise de décision en C2.Notre travail a alors consisté à explorer des mesures quantitatives du partage de conscience de situation, adaptées à l’exploitation automatisée et en temps réel par un système de diagnostic de la cognition collective. Nous avons mis en pratique l’utilisation du monitoring psychophysiologique et comportemental d’opérateurs engagés dans une tache (individuelle, puis collective) de C2, pour évaluer leur partage de conscience de situation, par l’utilisation de la pupillométrie par oculomètre (eye tracker).Ces études, nous ont amenés à mesurer la sensibilité du monitoring à la dynamique des consciences de situation des opérateurs et à leur partage en environnement écologique.Ce travail de doctorat se présente comme une mise en avant de l’intérêt et de l’applicabilité de systèmes d’évaluation du partage de cognition en environnement de travail collaboratif réaliste, et s’accompagne de propositions concernant le futur de la recherche sur le C2
Advances in information and communication technologies has enabled the development of collaborative work in almost all sectors of human activity. To ensure the performance of the group and minimize the risk of errors, it is crucial that the team members share a common understanding of the situation in which they are involved. This is particularly true in military crisis situations, such as those that exist within command and control (C2) structures.Within an environment characterized by the growing complexity of conflicts, the challenge today is both scientific and highly applicative. Progress in the study of collective cognition, the heart of collaborative work, has a clear potential that must be translated into tangible applications to optimize the management and execution of collective tasks. Real-time evaluation of the cognition of individuals and teams allows to envisage adaptive tools and systems to improve efficiency, performance and agility.In light of these challenges, our objective, commissioned by the DGA, is to find appropriate measures that would enable an assessment of the dynamics of the sharing of situational awareness, in the very constraining context of command and control room operations, which require the lowest possible level of instrumentation of operators.Our contribution to the field has been dual. We have proposed the concept of situation awareness synchrony to support the theoretical development of the study of the dynamics of situation awareness sharing. In addition, we have highlighted the importance of adopting a cognitive engineering methodology, in the perspective of transposing laboratory knowledge to a more complex application environments.Thus, our work consisted in exploring quantitative measures of shared situational awareness, suitable for automated and real-time exploitation by a collective cognition diagnostic system. We applied psychophysiological and behavioural monitoring of operators engaged in a C2 task (individual, then collective), to evaluate their shared situation awareness, using eye tracker pupillometry.These studies have led us to analyze the sensitivity of this monitoring to the dynamics of the operators' situational awareness and its sharing in an ecological environment.This doctoral work is presented as a demonstration of the interest and applicability of shared cognition evaluation systems in realistic collaborative work environments, and is supported by proposals concerning the future of research on C2

La thèse s’inscrit dans un projet de recherche mené par l’Institut de Recherche Biomédicale des Armées (IRBA). Ce projet vise à répondre à une demande formulée par l’Amiral Commandant des Forces Océaniques et Stratégiques suite à plusieurs incidents dans lesquels un défaut de transmission des informations au sein de l’équipe Sécurité-Plongée des Sous-marins Nucléaires d’Attaque a été identifié comme un facteur causal.Terrain. L’équipe Sécurité-Plongée, située dans le Poste Central Navigation Opérations, est en charge de la conduite et du maintien de la sécurité du sous-marin. Cette équipe travaille en coopération étroite avec d’autres équipes, principalement par l’intermédiaire de la communication verbale (en présentiel et à distance). Une première analyse de l’activité a permis d’identifier le chef d’équipe comme un élément central dans la transmission des informations entre le commandement et les membres de l’équipe Sécurité-Plongée, en charge du contrôle direct du processus. Pour cela, il lui est nécessaire d’élaborer une conscience de la situation adaptée aux objectifs du commandement et aux contraintes auxquelles sont confrontés ses coéquipiers. La recherche de thèse porte sur les mécanismes d’élaboration de la conscience de la situation collective lors de la gestion d’une situation dynamique et à risques.Méthode. Nos observations ont été réalisées auprès de 15 équipes de 6 sous-mariniers, lors de situations de simulation qui s’intègrent dans leur entraînement évalué et préalable à un départ en mission. Ces situations sont fortement contraintes temporellement et sont ponctuées de plusieurs phases de résolution de problèmes. La méthode que nous avons mise en œuvre de façon à étudier l’élaboration de la conscience de la situation collective se base sur la caractérisation des interactions verbales de l’équipe Sécurité-Plongée.Problématique. La thèse défendue est que la conscience de la situation collective émerge à partir des informations partagées au sein de l’équipe. Le chef d’équipe occupant une place centrale dans ce réseau, la caractérisation des informations qu’il échange avec ses coéquipiers permet de rendre compte de la dynamique de l’élaboration de sa conscience de la situation collective.Partie empirique. ─ La première étude de la thèse consiste en l’analyse de l’activité lors d’un épisode intéressant du point de vue de l’élaboration de la conscience de la situation, avec l’alternance de phases de conduite et de résolution de problèmes. Cette étude nous a permis d’identifier la dynamique des tâches réalisées et d’établir deux critères de performance, un pour la conduite et un pour la résolution de problèmes. La seconde étude vise à caractériser les flux de communication en s’appuyant notamment sur une méthode issue de l’analyse des réseaux sociaux. L’objectif est d’étudier d’une part l’impact de l’expérience des opérateurs sur la structure de la communication verbale, et d’autre part les liens entre la structure du réseau et la performance (de conduite et de résolution de problème). La troisième étude vise à identifier les processus cognitifs et les objets mobilisés dans la communication verbale. L’objectif est d’analyser l’impact de l’expérience des opérateurs sur le contenu des communications verbales d’une part, et les liens entre le contenu des communications verbales et la performance d’autre part.L’originalité de la thèse réside en partie dans cette articulation de méthodes d’analyse de la structure et du contenu de la communication verbale, en lien étroit avec l’activité, de façon à comprendre comme s’élabore la conscience de la situation d’un individu central dans un collectif en situation dynamique et à risques
This thesis is part of a research project conducted by the French Institut de Recherche Biomédicale des Armées (Armed Forces Biomedical Research Institute). The project aims to respond to a request made by the Admiral Commander of the Oceanic and Strategic Forces following several incidents in which a failure to transmit information within the SSN’s Diving Safety team was identified as a causal factor.Domain. The Diving Safety team, which is located in the Operation and Navigation Department, is responsible for the driving and maintenance of the submarine’s technical safety. This team works closely with other teams, mainly through verbal communication (face-to-face and remote). An initial analysis of their activities identified the team leader as a key element in the transmission of information between the command post and the members of the Diving Safety team, as this person has direct control of the process. The latter requires developing situation awareness (SA) that meets the objectives set by the command post and the constraints faced by his teammates. The research program described in this thesis focuses on the role of the team leader on mechanisms for developing collective SA when managing a dynamic and risky situation.Method. Our observations were made with 15 teams of 6 submariners, during simulation exercises that are part of their assessed training that is held prior to mission departure. These situations are highly time-constrained and are punctuated by several problem-solving phases. The method that we implemented to study the development of collective SA is based on the characterization of verbal interactions.Problem statement. We argue that collective SA emerges from the information shared within the team. Since the team leader is central in this network, the characterization of the information he exchanges with his teammates makes it possible to report on the dynamics of the development of the collective SA.Empirical studies. The first part of the thesis consists in the analysis of activity during an interesting episode from the point of view of developing SA, with alternating driving and problem-solving phases. This study allowed us to identify the dynamics of the tasks performed, and to establish two performance criteria, one for driving and one for problem solving. The second part aims to characterize communication flows based on a method derived from the social networks analysis. The objective is to study the impact of operators’ experience on the structure of verbal communication, on the one hand, and the links between the network structure and performance (driving and problem solving), on the other. The third part aims to identify in verbal communication the cognitive processes and objects involved in developing collective SA. The objective is to analyse the impact of operators’ experience on the content of verbal communication, on the one hand, and the links between the content of verbal communication and performance on the other.The originality of this thesis lies, in part, in this articulation of methods for analysing the structure and content of verbal communication, in close connection with the activity, in order to understand how collective SA develops in a dynamic and risky situation

Thesis (M.S. in Modeling, Virtual Environments, and Simulation)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2004.
Thesis advisor(s): Rudolph P. Darken, Susan G. Hutchins. Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-168). Also available online.

There are many current and future scenarios that require teams of air, ground or humanoid robots to gather information in complex and often dangerous environments, where it would be unreasonable or impossible for humans to be physically present [1-6]. The current state of the art involves a single robot being monitored by one or many human operators [7], but a single operator managing a team of autonomous robots is preferred as long as effective and time-efficient management of the team is maintained [8-9]. This is limited by the operator's ability to command actions of multiple robots, be aware of robot states, and respond to less important tasks, while accomplishing a primary objective defined by the application scenario. The operator's ability to multi-task could be improved with the use of a multimodal interface, using both visual and haptic feedback. This thesis investigates the use of haptic feedback in developing intuitive, shape-based interaction to maintain heads-up control and increase an operator's situation awareness (SA) while managing a robot team.In this work, the autonomous behavior of the team is modeled after a patrol and cordon scenario, where the team travels to and surrounds buildings of interest. A novel approach that involves treating the team as a moldable volume is presented, where deformations of this volume correspond to changes in team shape. During surround mode, the operator may explore or manipulate the team shape to create custom formations around a building. A spacing interaction method also allows the operator to adjust how robots are spaced within the current shape. Separate haptic feedback is developed for each method to allow the operator to "feel" the shape or spacing manipulation. During travel mode, the operator chooses desired travel locations and receives feedback to help identify how and where the team travels. RoTHSim, an experimental robot team haptic simulator, was developed and used as a test bed for single-operator management of a robot team in a multitasking reconnaissance and surveillance scenario. Using RoTHSim, a human subject experiment was conducted with 19 subjects to determine the effects of haptic feedback and task demand difficulty on levels of performance, SA and workload. Results from the experiment suggest that haptic feedback significantly improves operator performance in a reconnaissance task when task demand is higher, but may slightly increase operator workload. Due to the experimental setup, these results suggest that haptic feedback may make it easier for the operator to experience heads-up control of a team of autonomous robots. There were no significance differences on SA scores due to haptic feedback in this study.

This dissertation investigated the effects of spatialized auditory cues on the development of situation awareness for teams. Based on extant research, it was hypothesized that 3-D spatialized auditory cues can be utilized by teams to develop knowledge about team member location in addition to supporting the usage of team behaviors for developing and maintaining situation awareness. Accordingly, the study examined how situation awareness would be differentially influenced by varying the type of auditory cues incorporated into virtual environment (VE) team training scenarios within the context of a MOUT team task. In general, the results of this study provided partial support for the beneficial effects of 3-D audio cues in facilitating the development of situation awareness and reducing workload. Implications are discussed in the context of design guidance for VE training systems.
Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Arts and Sciences
Psychology

Research suggests situation awareness supports operator performance (e.g., Durso, Truitt, Hackworth, Crutchfield, & Manning, 1998), however no consensus definition exists (Rousseau, Tremblay, & Breton, 2004). One framework that incorporates most definitions is Endsleys (1995a) hierarchical view. It includes perception of elements in the environment, comprehension, and projection of future status. Although the literature has slowly begun to accept a hierarchical view of situation awareness, evidence supporting this claim is limited and indirect. Several researchers have suggested that long-term working memory (LTWM), a theory of a memory process that explains how individuals can rapidly encode information in long-term memory and retrieve information from long-term memory, supports the development of situation awareness. However, a critical review of past research reveals that it cannot be concluded that long-term working memory was being employed, and therefore the role that LTWM plays in situation awareness is still uncertain. To address these issues, ten instrument-rated pilots provided verbal reports while watching various flight scenarios unfold. Periodically, the simulation froze and the screen went blank. While the screen was blank, pilots answered questions about the current flight situation either immediately or after completing a 30 second working-memory-intensive task that precluded working memory involvement in performance. Responses to the questions were used to assess pilot situation awareness. Results indicate that situation awareness is hierarchical in nature and that the familiar mechanisms of LTWM are evident in pilot verbal protocols and measures of situation awareness. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that characteristics associated with pilot training methodologies in conjunction with familiar mechanisms of LTWM predict measures of situation awareness. It was also revealed that pilots focus on position and control information more so than specific instrument values. Data are consistent with pilot utilization of a retrieval structure where the pilots mental representation of the situation is driven by strategy. They are also consistent with a comprehension-based model of dynamic environments (Durso, Rawson, & Girotto, 2007). Finally, these data suggest that an event-based training technique may facilitate developing and maintaining situation awareness.

碩士
國立交通大學
工業工程與管理學系
101
Patient emergency situation arises when patient suffer from sudden change of physiological. To put the patient emergency situation under control and further increase the patient safety, paramedic has to maintain situation awareness and the collaboration between team members to maintain the team situation awareness. Maintaining situation awareness would require necessary information and effective representation of these information. This study uses the framework of the cognition work analysis to identify information needs and the human factor issue in patient emergency situation, then developed an integrated information display for this situation. The results of user evaluation indicated that this integrated information display could improve the team situation awareness for medical team members under patient emergency situation.

碩士
國立交通大學
工業工程與管理系所
95
The operation of advanced control room of nuclear power plant is very complex and dynamic. In order to operate nuclear power plant effectively and safely, it relays on interaction of each team member. The most important component of team member’s interaction is communication, it can help crews understand dynamic environment rapidly. The transformation of human interfaces from analog to computer-based will have impacts on communication pattern. Previous studies in team communication focused on human performance; however, the issues of human interfaces were considered rarely. Hence, the main purpose of this study is to use cognitive task analysis approach to explore the influences of information displays and team communications upon team situation awareness. The results show that compared to inexperienced team which is unfamiliar with interface operation, experienced team with human interfaces used to take advantage to information display to communication with other persons. Abnormal task need more communication than normal one which includes information supply, report, inquiry and acknowledgement.

A estruturação do trabalho em equipas de trabalho tem-se tornado uma realidade patente nas organizações hoje em dia, sendo isto especialmente verdade quando nos referimos ao sector da consultoria. Deste modo, a eficácia das equipas tornou-se um tópico popular na literatura (Hackman, 1983). Uma das áreas que tem recebido maior atenção por parte dos investigadores, é o papel da liderança no sucesso da equipa (Morgeson, DeRue, & Karam, 2010). Os comportamentos do líder têm sido estudados como inputs e moderadores para os processos de equipa, demonstrando-se uma correlação entre os comportamentos do líder e a eficácia das equipas (Marks, Zaccaro, & Mathieu, 2000; Zaccaro, Rittman, & Marks, 2001). O presente estudo procura estudar os comportamentos de sensegiving do líder como potenciais preditores da adaptação da equipa e consequente eficácia da mesma, através do team situation awareness (TSA). A TSA é um dos estados emergentes cognitivos das equipas e essencial para a adaptação da equipa (Burke, Stagl, Salas, Pierce, & Kendall, 2006). Com uma amostra de 54 equipas, a recolha de dados foi através de questionário aplicado aos membros e respetivo líder de equipa. Os resultados mostramnos que, em duas das três dimensões da eficácia da equipa (desempenho e satisfação), os resultados da mediação são significativos, com fortes correlações entre o sensegiving, a team situation awareness e a adaptação da equipa, o que contribui para a eficácia.
Structuring work around teams has become a fact of organizational life, which is especially true for the consulting services sector. Therefore, the team effectiveness has been a popular topic in the literature (Hackman, 1983). One area that has begun to receive increased attention is the role of leadership in team success (Morgeson, DeRue, & Karam, 2010). The leader’s figure and behaviours have been investigated as inputs and moderators of team processes, showing results of the correlation between the leader’s behaviours and team effectiveness (Marks, Zaccaro, & Mathieu, 2000; Zaccaro, Rittman, & Marks, 2001). The present research aims to analyze the leader’s sensegiving behaviors as potential predictor of team adaptation and consequently team effectiveness, through team situation awareness (TSA). TSA is one of the emergent cognitive states of teams and essential for team adaptation (Burke, Stagl, Salas, Pierce, & Kendall, 2006). With a sample of 54 teams (207 participants), the data collection was done through a questionnaire to team members and their respective leaders. The results show us that in the two of the three dimensions of team effectiveness (performance and satisfaction), the results of the mediations are significant, with strong connections between leader’s sensegiving, team situation awareness and team adaptation.

abstract: Human-agent teams (HATs) are expected to play a larger role in future command and control systems where resilience is critical for team effectiveness. The question of how HATs interact to be effective in both normal and unexpected situations is worthy of further examination. Exploratory behaviors are one that way adaptive systems discover opportunities to expand and refine their performance. In this study, team interaction exploration is examined in a HAT composed of a human navigator, human photographer, and a synthetic pilot while they perform a remotely-piloted aerial reconnaissance task. Failures in automation and the synthetic pilot’s autonomy were injected throughout ten missions as roadblocks. Teams were clustered by performance into high-, middle-, and low-performing groups. It was hypothesized that high-performing teams would exchange more text-messages containing unique content or sender-recipient combinations than middle- and low-performing teams, and that teams would exchange less unique messages over time. The results indicate that high-performing teams had more unique team interactions than middle-performing teams. Additionally, teams generally had more exploratory team interactions in the first session of missions than the second session. Implications and suggestions for future work are discussed.
Dissertation/Thesis
Masters Thesis Human Systems Engineering 2019

碩士
中原大學
工業與系統工程研究所
97
More and more automation has been introduced into advanced main control rooms of nuclear power plants. These automation systems, however, have caused unexpected impact on operation, such as team communication and situation awareness. This study’s purpose was to examine if automation will influence team communication and situation awareness, and to discuss the relevance of team communication and situation awareness. Twenty subjects were randomly assigned to ten two-person crews including one manager on duty and one reactor operator. According the category of human-computer interface automation defined by Endsley and Kaber (1999) , the simulated shutdown task of PCTran (Personal Computer Transient Analyzer) was operated by two levels of automation, LOA6 (blended decision making) and LOA2 (action support). The experiment adopted Endsley’s SAGAT measured subjects’ multi-level situation awareness. In the action the communications between the crewmembers was coded the seven categories. The result revealed there are significant differences between partial groups when operating two different automation levels. It suggested that automation certainly caused impact on team communication, lowering the frequencies of team communication. Next, the situation awareness of managers and operators used LOA2 is higher than one of crews took LOA6, representing situation awareness in low automation is better. In addition to, the study also discovered that commands, observations and situation awareness have positive relation, while suggestion and reactor operators’ the first level situation awareness has negative one.

Trust is a core construct of our social lives, influencing how we interact with other individuals that are part of our social circle. Whether at work, in teams, or with friends and family, trust influences how much information we exchange with the other individuals and how we interact as a dyad. Defined as risk acceptance behaviour in situations where there is dependency between the parties, trusting another person means accepting some risks to benefit from the social integration of tasks and knowledge. In an institutional environment, trust is a core component of teamwork dynamics, having a strong influence on team effectiveness and performance. Teams are the backbone of current industry, research, healthcare, and business domains. Teams have the power to increase the momentum of projects and tasks, and may also benefit from the collective body of knowledge brought by experts from different fields. Teamwork also brings new constraints to the interpersonal dynamic; for instance, a lack of interpersonal trust can deeply impact the performance and effectiveness of a team. Without trust, communication and interaction between team members can be significantly impaired, limiting the ability of a team to perform and to become effective. As teams move to non-collocated work, the development of trust is restricted by the limited media richness of communication channels. The perceptual mechanisms that compose the major part of the trust development process become constrained, as behavioural cues are not readily available through Computer Mediated Communication Systems (CMCSs). For this reason, virtual teams can suffer from low, fragile, and delayed trust, impairing team effectiveness and performance. Given the increasing prevalence of non-collocated teams, there is a need for the development of a toolset for understanding, measuring, and fostering trust in distributed teamwork environments. The existing literature provides only a partial understanding of the trust formation process and does not encompass a detailed description of the perceptual mechanisms that would help explain trust formation and allow the design of interventions tailored at targeting trust. I started by developing a model that explains trust formation and the perceptual mechanisms involved in this process, in which I also incorporate the distinction between intuitive trust and calculative confidence. The Human Factors Interpersonal Trust State Formation Model developed in this thesis helps explain the situational variability of interpersonal trust, a very important characteristic to consider when using the knowledge about trust formation to inform design. This model explains how researchers and practitioners can develop designs and interventions to foster trust based on increasing the perception of trust-building cues. Similarly, good trust metrics must capture both a measurement of trust between two people and provide information about how each trust cue influences the formation of the trust state. With the intent of incorporating situational sensitivity to a trust metric, I designed the Quick Trust Assessment Scale (QTAS), based on the NASA-TLX structure, using a combination of direct rating of subjective subscales of trust, with a pairwise comparison of each pair of subscales. I evaluated the QTAS using Crombach’s Alpha and Factor Analysis. The results showed high internal validity and identified one component for extraction from the metric, since this component focused on measuring a construct outside the interest of the QTAS. The QTAS is the first trust metric to be developed that includes a component to measure the situational variability of trust. The next component of this thesis focuses on identifying and testing ways to foster trust in a specific other through electronic communication. To achieve this objective, I initially conducted an ethnographic study to identify how team members foster trust in face-to-face collaborations and which trust cues are most often exchanged. In this study, I identified the effect of a third party on fostering trust (liaison) and five behaviours, or trust building cues, that were most used: recommendation, validation, expertise, social network, and benevolence/willingness to help. These five behaviours were later converted into interface design objects (trust tokens), in the form of badges, to be used in CMCSs and social network environments, acting as surrogates for the missing trust cues. The trust tokens were tested on simulated social network interfaces to identify the effects of multiple latent factors. Results showed that the use of the trust tokens is independent of gender, age, education level, and personality type. However, use was dependent on the type of risk the participants were facing and their cultural background. Although trust tokens are effective in fostering trust behaviour, there was not a unified solution for every type of situation. In order to further validate the situational dependence of trust decisions, I have evaluated two major variables of interest. Through experimental manipulation, I demonstrated the influence of (1) situational risk and (2) cultural background on the use of trust cues. These findings are of relevance for the design of systems that support the development of interpersonal trust as they raise the awareness of the highly variable nature of trust. In order for designers, researchers, and practitioners to successfully influence trust behaviour in teamwork environments, they need to include interpersonal trust as a variable of interest in the design requirements of systems that support teamwork, as well as carefully consider the impact of their interventions, as their interventions will influence variably, depending on the situation and target population. Ultimately, this research program demonstrates the importance of including interpersonal trust as a variable of interest in and as a requirement for the design of systems that support teamwork and collaboration.