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This study investigated decision response times in dynamic tactical scenarios in which participants interacted with a virtual command post environment. Fifty-two Marines were asked to observe a tactical situation and to formulate a battle plan as quickly as possible. Two scenarios differing in the level of information certainty were presented. Participants were required to assess a developing situation, determine the tactical leverage point, form a plan of action, and issue battle orders. Results show that situation assessment time was significantly greater for the High Experience group than the Low Experience group. However, once situational assessment was complete, the selection of a course of action was significantly faster for the High Experience group. In addition, the time needed to execute a course of action was significantly less for the highly experienced individuals under conditions of high uncertainty. However, under conditions of low uncertainty, level of experience produced no statistically significant differences in response execution. Results suggest that information processing for situation assessment and response selection may become more parallel or overlap as content domain experience increases.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThese studies were conducted with the assistance and cooperation of the Fifth Marine Regiment, Camp Pendleton, California, and the Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia. We would like to thank Colonel Brooks, Commanding Officer of Fifth Marines, and Major Kanewske, his S-3, for their unselfish dedication of time and effort in facilitating access to the officers and staff noncommissioned officers of the regiment who participated in our research. We would also like to thank Lieutenant Colonel O'Dwyer of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory for performing the necessary groundwork to ensure that we were able to work with the officers and staff noncommissioned officers of the various schools within the Marine Corps University. Within the Marine Corps University, we are indebted to Lieutenant Colonel Catiin of the Amphibious Warfare School, Major Hague of Command and Staff College, and Master Sergeant Friend of the Staff Noncommissioned Officers Academy for the time and effort they expended, ensuring that their officers and staff noncommissioned officers were available to us and thereby ensuring the success of our efforts.The authors would like to thank and acknowledge the following individuals who reviewed this report for technical accuracy: Mr. Michael Barnes, U.S. Army Research Laboratory (Fort Huachuca Field Element); Major James Cummiskey, Marine Corps Tactical System Support Activity, Camp Pendleton, California; and Professor Earl Hunt, Department of Psychology, University of Washington. SB EXECUTIVE SUMMARYTactical military information is, by definition, always uncertain to varying degrees. This is especially true regarding predictions of crucial future events such as enemy intent and troop movements. Nonetheless, traditional map-based information representations possess no technique for representing the degree of information uncertainty. In the first experiment, we developed textual and graphical representations of uncertain enemy intent and future troop movements on realistic battlefield maps that we compared against a baseline representation. Our assumption was that more easily remembered information leads to greater situation awareness which, in turn, leads to superior decision-making. Fleet Marine Force Marines with Combat Operations Center (COC) experience participated in the study. Maps employing graphical representations of enemy intent were superior to the baseline or text-based maps for recalling relative direction and relative distance of enemy future positions. In the second experiment, we examined the effects of battlefield information uncertainty on the nature of tactical decisions. Marines with substantial COC experience were unaffected by the degree of uncertainty concerning enemy strength and position, but less-experienced Marines were more likely to choose to wait before acting when uncertainty was high.in

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThese studies were conducted with the assistance and cooperation of the Fifth Marine Regiment, Camp Pendleton, CA. We would like to thank Colonel Brooks, Commanding Officer of Fifth Marines, and Major Turner (his S-3), for their unselfish dedication of time and effort in facilitating access to the officers and staff noncommissioned officers who participated in our research.The authors would also like to thank the following individuals who reviewed this report for technical accuracy: Mr. Michael Barnes, U.S. Army Research Laboratory (Fort Huachuca Field Element); Major James Cummiskey, Marine Corps Tactical System Support Activity, Camp Pendleton, CA; and Professor Earl Hunt, Department of Psychology, University of Washington. JA SUMMARY OBJECTIVEThe purpose of this research was to investigate decision response times in a dynamic tactical scenario in which participants interacted with a virtual command-post environment. Fifty-two Marines with varying amounts of command-post experience assessed the situation as it developed, determined tactical leverage points, formed a plan of action, and submitted battle orders. Two scenarios, which differed in the level of certainty in the information provided, were studied. The tactical decision process was modeled and analyzed in the following sequential, cognitive stages: situation assessment, course of action selection, course of action execution. RESULTSResults show that the time required to assess the situation was significantly different between the experience groups (p < .05), revealing that the High-Experience group took considerably longer than the Low-Experience group to assess the situation. However, once the assessment was complete, the selection of a course of action (COA) was significantly faster for the High-Experience group than the Low-Experience group. In addition, a statistically significant main effect of Task Certainty was found indicating that COA selection under conditions of Low Certainty took significantly longer than under conditions of High Certainty. Time required for COA execution indicated a significant main effect of Experience (p < .05), a main effect of Task Certainty approaching statistical significance (p = .067), and a statistically significant interaction (p < .05). These results indicate that the time needed to execute the COA, once determined, is significantly less for the highly experienced individuals under conditions of low certainty. However, under conditions of high certainty, no statistically significant time differences were found distinguishing the High-and Low-Experience groups. The High-Experience group was significantly more accurate than the Low-Experience group for developing an appropriate COA.in CONTENTS