This book presents the latest work in the area of naturalistic decision making (NDM) and its extension into the area of macrocognition. It contains 18 chapters relating research centered on the study of expertise in naturalistic settings, written by international experts in NDM and cognitive systems engineering. The objective of the book is to present the reader with exciting new developments in this field of research, which is characterized by its application-oriented focus. The work addresses only real-world problems and issues. For instance, how do multi-national teams collaborate effectively? How can surgeons best be supported by technology? How do detectives make sense of complex criminal cases? In all instances the studies have been carried out on experts within their respective domains. The traditional field of NDM is extended in this work by focusing on macrocognitive functions other than decision making, namely sense-making, coordination and planning. This has broadened the scope of the field. The book also contains a theoretical discussion of the macro-micro distinction. Naturalistic Decision Making and Macrocognition will be relevant to graduate students, researchers and professionals (including professionals and researchers in business, industry and government) who are interested in decision making, expertise, training methods and system design. The material may be used in two ways: theoretically, to advance understanding of the field of naturalistic decision making; and practically, to gain insight into how experts in various domains solve particular problems, understand and deal with issues and collaborate with others.

The increasing complexity of work systems and changes in the nature of workplace technology over the past century have resulted in an exponential shift in the nature of work activities, from physical labor to cognitive work. Modern work systems have many characteristics that make them cognitively complex: They can be highly interactive; comprised of multiple agents and artifacts; information may be limited and distributed across space and time; task goals are frequently ill-defined, conflicting, dynamic and emergent; planning may only be possible at general levels of abstraction or require adaptive solutions; some degree of proficiency or expertise is required; the stakes are often high; and uncertainty, time-constraints and stress are seldom absent. To complicate matters further, cognition in complex work settings is typically constrained by broader professional, organizational, and institutional practice and policy. These features of cognitive work present significant challenges to scientific methodology and theory, and subsequent design of reliable interventions. Historically, philosophers and scientists have attempted to understand the mental activities experienced during cognitive work at multiple levels of analysis using divergent methods. Some have examined cognition at an associative, contextual, functional or holistic level, relying on naturalistic methods to understand the higher mental processes as they work in harmony during goal-directed behavior. Others have embraced experimental methods and favored internal over external validity, often reducing cognition to a psychology of fundamental acts, such as short-term memory access with millisecond shifts in attention. More recently, Macrocognition has evolved as a complementary paradigm. Macrocognitive researchers have studied the cognitive functions and processes associated with skilled, adaptive, collaborative, and resilient cognitive work in the context of the aforementioned complexities of psychotechnical and sociotechnical work systems. Typically, this research has been carried out using cognitive task analytic techniques that draw on both naturalistic and (quasi-)experimental methods. The primary goals of research in Macrocognition are to better understand cognitive adaptations to complexity, to increase our theoretical understanding of the organism-environment relations by studying the mapping between cognitive work and real-world demands, and to promote use-inspired research capable of improving system performance.

This book presents the latest work in the area of naturalistic decision making (NDM) and its extension into the area of macrocognition. It contains 18 chapters relating research centred on the study of expertise in naturalistic settings, written by international experts in NDM and cognitive systems engineering. The objective of the book is to present the reader with exciting new developments in this field of research, which is characterized by its application-oriented focus.The work addresses only real-world problems and issues. For instance, how do multi-national teams collaborate effectively? How can surgeons best be supported by technology? The traditional field of NDM is extended in this work by focusing on macrocognitive functions other than decision making, namely sense-making, coordination and planning. This has broadened the scope of the field. The book also contains a theoretical discussion of the macro-micro distinction. Naturalistic Decision Making and Macrocognition will be relevant to graduate students, researchers and professionals (including professionals and researchers in business, industry and government) who are interested in decision making, expertise, training methods and system design.

This book develops a novel approach to distributed cognition and collective intentionality. It is argued that collective mentality should be only be posited where specialized subroutines are integrated in a way that yields skillful goal-directed behaviour that is sensitive to concerns that are relevant to a group as such.

Macrocognition Metrics and Scenarios: Design and Evaluation for Real-World Teams translates advances by scientific leaders in the relatively new area of macrocognition into a format that will support immediate use by members of the software testing and evaluation community for large-scale systems as well as trainers of real-world teams. Macrocognition is defined as how activity in real-world teams is adapted to the complex demands of a setting with high consequences for failure. The primary distinction between macrocognition and prior research is that the primary unit for measurement is a real-world team coordinating their activity, rather than individuals processing information, the predominant model for cognition for decades. This book provides an overview of the theoretical foundations of macrocognition, describes a set of exciting new macrocognitive metrics, and provides guidance on using the metrics in the context of different approaches to evaluation and measurement of real-world teams.

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.

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.

We live in an age of scientific collaboration, popular uprisings, failing political parties, and increasing corporate power. Many of these kinds of collective action derive from the decisions of intelligent and powerful leaders, and many others emerge as a result of the aggregation of individual interests. But genuinely collective mentality remains a seductive possibility. This book develops a novel approach to distributed cognition and collective intentionality. It argues that genuine cognition requires the capacity to engage in flexible goal-directed behavior, and that this requires specialized representational systems that are integrated in a way that yields fluid and skillful coping with environmental contingencies. In line with this argument, the book claims that collective mentality should be posited where and only where specialized subroutines are integrated to yields goal-directed behavior that is sensitive to the concerns that are relevant to a group as such. Unlike traditional claims about collective intentionality, this approach reveals that there are many kinds of collective minds: some groups have cognitive capacities that are more like those that we find in honeybees or cats than they are like those that we find in people. Indeed, groups are unlikely to be "believers" in the fullest sense of the term, and understanding why this is the case sheds new light on questions about collective intentionality and collective responsibility.

Insights -- like Darwin's understanding of the way evolution actually works, and Watson and Crick's breakthrough discoveries about the structure of DNA -- can change the world. We also need insights into the everyday things that frustrate and confuse us so that we can more effectively solve problems and get things done. Yet we know very little about when, why, or how insights are formed -- or what blocks them. In Seeing What Others Don't, renowned cognitive psychologist Gary Klein unravels the mystery. Klein is a keen observer of people in their natural settings -- scientists, businesspeople, firefighters, police officers, soldiers, family members, friends, himself -- and uses a marvelous variety of stories to illuminate his research into what insights are and how they happen. What, for example, enabled Harry Markopolos to put the finger on Bernie Madoff? How did Dr. Michael Gottlieb make the connections between different patients that allowed him to publish the first announcement of the AIDS epidemic? What did Admiral Yamamoto see (and what did the Americans miss) in a 1940 British attack on the Italian fleet that enabled him to develop the strategy of attack at Pearl Harbor? How did a "smokejumper" see that setting another fire would save his life, while those who ignored his insight perished? How did Martin Chalfie come up with a million-dollar idea (and a Nobel Prize) for a natural flashlight that enabled researchers to look inside living organisms to watch biological processes in action? Klein also dissects impediments to insight, such as when organizations claim to value employee creativity and to encourage breakthroughs but in reality block disruptive ideas and prioritize avoidance of mistakes. Or when information technology systems are "dumb by design" and block potential discoveries. Both scientifically sophisticated and fun to read, Seeing What Others Don't shows that insight is not just a "eureka!" moment but a whole new way of understanding.