"This research effort applied principles of Naturalistic Decision Making to identify the cognitive challenges involved in platoon leader decision making in Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) building clearing missions. The findings informed the development of classroom, hardcopy, and multimedia training products to support Infantry Officer Basic Course students in MOUT decision making. A Cognitive Task Analysis of the building clearing task entailed a series of in-depth interviews with Army personnel experienced in MOUT. The analysis resulted in a detailed representation of eleven high-level decision requirements associated with the building-clearing task. Cognitive demands related to each requirement -- critical decisions and judgements, sensory cues, other factors, and expert strategies -- are included in the representation. Four products were developed based on the findings of the analysis: sixteen decision-centered training scenarios for MOUT environments; an interactive, multimedia tool (IMPACT) that supports instructors in training MOUT decision making skills; a classroom exercise that supports situation awareness appreciation and understanding; and a guide that provides supplemental information regarding the building clearing task from a platoon leader's perspective."--Stinet.

"Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) create unique cognitive demands for small unit leaders, particularly platoon leaders. Years of experience are typically needed to master these demands. However, most platoon leaders tend to have limited experience in Army operations generally, and MOUT operations specifically. A cognitive task analysis, based on in depth interviews with subject matter experts (n=7), was conducted to expose the cognitive aspects of expertise existing within one important MOUT task, building clearing operations. From the perspective of platoon leaders, the cognitive demands of this task were defined within the context of decision requirement tables. Decision requirements detail critical decisions and judgments, the reasons why they can be difficult to make, cues and factors that influence decision making, and rules and strategies employed in the decision making process. The findings of the cognitive task analysis guided the development of training recommendations, particularly the need for a scenario based MOUT training program aimed at improving platoon leader expertise through practice in decision making."--Stinet.

Leader development is an important part of industry, government, healthcare, education and military organizations, among others. It also requires considerable investment and resources. This book was sponsored by the Army Research Institute and takes a go

This, the 23rd issue of the Transactions on Computational Science journal, guest edited by Xiaoyang Mao and Lichan Hong, is devoted to the topic of security in virtual worlds. It contains extended versions of the best papers selected from those presented at the International Conference on Cyberworlds 2013, held at Keio University, Yokohama, Japan, October 21-23, 2013. The 11 papers in the volume have been organized into topical sections on modeling, rendering, motion, virtual environments and affective computing.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Augmented Cognition, AC 2013, held as part of the 15th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2013, held in Las Vegas, USA in July 2013, jointly with 12 other thematically similar conferences. The total of 1666 papers and 303 posters presented at the HCII 2013 conferences was carefully reviewed and selected from 5210 submissions. These papers address the latest research and development efforts and highlight the human aspects of design and use of computing systems. The papers accepted for presentation thoroughly cover the entire field of human-computer interaction, addressing major advances in knowledge and effective use of computers in a variety of application areas. The total of 81 contributions was carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the AC proceedings. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: augmented cognition in training and education; team cognition; brain activity measurement; understanding and modeling cognition; cognitive load, stress and fatigue; applications of augmented cognition.

Team collaboration involves many operational tasks such as team decision-making or course of action selection, developing shared understanding, and intelligence analysis. These operational tasks must be performed in many situations, often under severe time pressure, with information and knowledge uncertainty, large amounts of dynamic information and across different team characteristics. Recent research in this area has focused on various aspects of human collaborative decision-making and the underlying cognitive processes while describing those processes at different levels of detail, making it difficult to compare research results. The theoretical construct of ‘macrocognition in teams’ was developed to facilitate cognitive research in team collaboration, which will enable a common level of understanding when defining, measuring and discussing the cognitive processes in team collaboration. Macrocognition is defined as both the internalized and externalized mental processes employed by team members in complex, one-of-a-kind, collaborative problem solving. Macrocognition in Teams provides readers with a greater understanding of the macrocognitive processes which support collaborative team activity, showcasing current research, theories, methodologies and tools. It will be of direct relevance to academics, researchers and practitioners interested in group/team interaction, performance, development and training.