ABSTRACT
The physical environment that surrounds the team defines a context that, along with the operating procedures, choreographs a particular cooperative team "dance". The physical form of the workstation defines the constraints that shape operators' physical behavior; spatial layout of the control environment constrains operators to perform a specific set of movements. The relationship between context and the interpretation of information is a pivotal point in the study of team coordination and communication. The separation of displays and controls—which often imposes a higher workload on the single operator—enhances teamwork by providing information that may support consequential communication. The parsing of communication into the dichotomy of "verbal" and "nonverbal" is an artifact of the human attempt to scientifically study the flow of information between two or more organisms. In the particular context of team-machine interaction, aggregating operators creates a context that includes two categories of interactions: that which we usually call "control," and that which is called "communication.".
