ABSTRACT
Augmented team cognition involves the facilitation of cognitive activities such as decision making, planning, and problem solving at a team level, where team is defined as an interdependent group of specialized individuals working toward a common goal. Several well-known disasters of the 1980s and other more mundane events, which were attributed at least partially to poor cognitive performance by teams, prompted much research and development on team cognition and augmented team cognition. One of the major bottlenecks in implementing augmented cognition for teams is in deciding for any given team, what aspect of team cognition requires augmentation. There are a number of challenges associated with assessment and diagnosis of team cognition including determining the appropriate level of measurement (individual or team level) and the assessment of “shared” cognition in teams that are heterogeneous and clearly not meant to have members who share the “same” cognition. The ultimate challenge is to provide reliable and valid methods for assessing team cognition unobtrusively in an operational setting. Team communication has been targeted by many as a data source on team cognition; however, automation of analysis is required for real-time assessment. Some of our work on automating communication analysis is presented as one solution to real-time assessment of team cognition.
