"Members of small dismounted units will face growing responsibilities and increasing challenges in combined arms combat and contingency operations on the battlefield of the future. Many of these missions will take place in urban settings. Training for military operations on urbanized terrain is limited by time, cost, and safety factors. Virtual environment technologies have the potential to provide the Army with a training capability to meet these new demands. An automated training and after action review support tool (Virtual Soldier Skills Assessor - ViSSA) is described. The ViSSA system will allow trainers to effectively assess soldier and small unit leader tactical and decision-making skills in virtual urban environments. The system tracks mission-related factors linked to soldier decisions, movements, fire, radio, traffic, and contact with virtual entities and trigger lines under an intricate web of overlays designed to capture and store these specific pieces of data during a training scenario. The system provides automated output displays for an effective after-action review following the virtual exercise."--DTIC.

"This report describes a preliminary research effort to: (1) determine the effectiveness of using a virtual environment to train real world decision- making skills; (2) examine the feasibility of using a virtual environment as a test bed for developing situation awareness (SA) measurement instruments and; (3) empirically assess the role of SA in decision-making in simulated dismounted infantry environments. Seven experienced and seven inexperienced officers, role- playing a dismounted infantry platoon leader, individually conducted four urban operation scenarios (missions) in a virtual environment setting. Decision-making capability and SA were assessed for each mission. Objective decision-point accuracy improved significantly over missions. Level of experience did not impact the rate of learning. Experience did play a significant role in SA assessments. Selected SA measures also predicted a significant portion of the variance in objective decision-point scores. The research showed that real world decision-making skills could be trained using virtual environment technologies. To insure maximum benefit, virtual training must be combined with the appropriate field experience and mentoring. Conducting research in a controlled virtual environment setting permitted closer empirical scrutiny of the linkage between decision-making and SA in dismounted infantry operations and suggested new directions for further work in these areas."--DTIC.

This report describes a preliminary research effort to: (1) determine the effectiveness of using a virtual environment to train real world decision- making skills; (2) examine the feasibility of using a virtual environment as a test bed for developing situation awareness (SA) measurement instruments and; (3) empirically assess the role of SA in decision-making in simulated dismounted infantry environments. Seven experienced and seven inexperienced officers, role- playing a dismounted infantry platoon leader, individually conducted four urban operation scenarios (missions) in a virtual environment setting. Decision-making capability and SA were assessed for each mission. Objective decision-point accuracy improved significantly over missions. Level of experience did not impact the rate of learning. Experience did play a significant role in SA assessments. Selected SA measures also predicted a significant portion of the variance in objective decision-point scores. The research showed that real world decision-making skills could be trained using virtual environment technologies. To insure maximum benefit, virtual training must be combined with the appropriate field experience and mentoring. Conducting research in a controlled virtual environment setting permitted closer empirical scrutiny of the linkage between decision-making and SA in dismounted infantry operations and suggested new directions for further work in these areas.

This report describes a preliminary research effort to: (1) determine the effectiveness of using a virtual environment to train real world decision- making skills; (2) examine the feasibility of using a virtual environment as a test bed for developing situation awareness (SA) measurement instruments and; (3) empirically assess the role of SA in decision-making in simulated dismounted infantry environments. Seven experienced and seven inexperienced officers, role- playing a dismounted infantry platoon leader, individually conducted four urban operation scenarios (missions) in a virtual environment setting. Decision-making capability and SA were assessed for each mission. Objective decision-point accuracy improved significantly over missions. Level of experience did not impact the rate of learning. Experience did play a significant role in SA assessments. Selected SA measures also predicted a significant portion of the variance in objective decision-point scores. The research showed that real world decision-making skills could be trained using virtual environment technologies. To insure maximum benefit, virtual training must be combined with the appropriate field experience and mentoring. Conducting research in a controlled virtual environment setting permitted closer empirical scrutiny of the linkage between decision-making and SA in dismounted infantry operations and suggested new directions for further work in these areas.

"This research examined the use of virtual environments as a viable dismounted infantry mission rehearsal tool. Four squads of soldiers individually conducted two missions that involved clearing a two-story building located at an urban operations training site. Two squads rehearsed the mission in a virtual representation of the exact building they would clear at the urban training site. The remaining squads rehearsed in an actual two-story building that was similar to the one they would clear at the urban training site. Squads executed both missions in each environment. Performance differences between the rehearsal groups across the two real-world' missions were small to negligible. Group performance differences for flatricides and personnel flagging were negatively affected by simulator constraints. Effectiveness ratings for the two rehearsal modes were clearly dependent on the setting where soldiers rehearsed. The research showed that while virtual environments show promise for this type of training, a number of interface and technology problems must be overcome. Currently, virtual environments do not appear to be as effective as real-world tactical training for improving skills underlying specific small unit tasks or battle drills. However, these environments may be used effectively at selected stages of training to enhance cognitive skills development."--DTIC.

FLINS, originally an acronym for Fuzzy Logic and Intelligent Technologies in Nuclear Science, is now extended to Computational Intelligence for applied research. The contributions to the 11th of FLINS conference cover state-of-the-art research, development, and technology for computational intelligence systems, both from the foundations and the applications points-of-view.

The ability to anticipate and make accurate decisions in a timely manner is fundamental to high-level performance in sport. This is the first book to identify the underlying science behind anticipation and decision making in sport, enhancing our scientific understanding of these phenomena and helping practitioners to develop interventions to facilitate the more rapid acquisition of the perceptual-cognitive skills that underpin these judgements. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach — encompassing research from psychology, biomechanics, neuroscience, physiology, computing science, and performance analysis — the book is divided into three sections. The first section provides a comprehensive analysis of the processes and mechanisms underpinning anticipation and skilled perception in sport. In the second section, the focus shifts towards exploring the science of decision making in sport. The final section is more applied, outlining how the key skills that impact on anticipation and decision making may be facilitated through various training interventions. With chapters written by leading experts from a vast range of countries and continents, no other book offers such a synthesis of the historical development of the field, contemporary research, and future areas for investigation in anticipation and decision making in sport. This is a fascinating and important text for students and researchers in sport psychology, skill acquisition, expert performance, motor learning, motor behaviour, and coaching science, as well as practicing coaches from any sport.