The goal of this research was to examine the ways in which human operators interact with simulated semiautonomous unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), semiautonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and teleoperated UGVs (Teleop). Robotic operators performed parallel route reconnaissance missions with each platform alone and with all three platforms. When given all three platforms, participants failed to detect more targets than when given only the UAV or UGV; they were also less likely to complete their mission in the allotted time. Target detection during missions was the poorest with the Teleop alone, likely because of the demands of remote driving. Spatial ability was found to be a good predictor of target-detection performance.

Monitoring digital displays for changes will be an increasing part of a soldier's duties as the U.S. Army transforms to a networked system of systems; however, it is well established that humans often fail to detect such changes in contexts with competing demands on attention. Interventions that enhance visual attention might also enhance change detection, because focused attention has been identified as a requirement for change detection. Given current claims that habitual experience with action video games can increase attentional resources, we investigated whether such experience would lessen the incidence of change blindness in two change detection tasks. Although we replicated a previously demonstrated difference between players and nonplayers on the flanker-compatibility test (Green & Bavelier, 2003), we failed to find evidence that habitual action video game players were superior to nonplayers when it came to change detection.As the U.S. military develops more complex networked digital systems for battlefield management, troop deployment, and other operational needs, the monitoring of digital displays will become an increasingly important aspect of many soldiers' responsibilities. Some have argued that if new soldiers are already familiar with

The potential for change detection failure during the monitoring of a military digital situation awareness map was investigated. Participants were asked to monitor the map for icon appearance or disappearance. A change accompanied by two other changes was detected 69.3% of the time, while the same change occurring alone was detected 79.6% of the time. When three changes occurred simultaneously, all three were detected only 37% of the time. Detection of icon appearance was superior to detection of icon disappearance, as might be expected from the literature on visual attention. The discussion addresses the need to represent change explicitly in such systems and suggests properties that a change detection aid should possess.Military command and control is undergoing major transformation. The use of networked information processing tools is increasing, along with the employment of unmanned sensors. As these systems proliferate, direct observation will no longer MILITARY PSYCHOLOGY, 20:81-94, 2008

No abstract

Recently, alarm systems have become more sensitive and ubiquitous. Unfortunately, sensitive alarm systems may produce greater numbers of false alarms, lowering an operator's level of trust and degrading task performance. In the past, researchers have considered only situations where individuals react to alarms. Because of the frequency and variability of teamed alarm reaction scenarios, we investigated the reactions of independent and dependent teams to collateral marginally reliable alarms. Based on prior literature, we expected dependent teams to show slower but more appropriate alarm reactions and poorer ongoing task performances. Eighty general psychology students (40 two-person teams) independently or dependently performed a psychomotor task while reacting to two alarm systems; one that was 80% reliable, and one that was 40%, 60%, or 80% reliable. Participants responded more frequently to alarms of higher reliability, and less appropriately to those of medium reliability. Generally, dependent teams made more appropriate alarm reactions. Our results suggest that designers and trainers should promote team interdependence and communication when operators are faced with marginally reliable signals.