ABSTRACT
At the turn of the Twenty First Century, military forces face a fundamental change in the nature of warfare in that they no longer confront an ‘obvious’ enemy. In recent engagements, it has become progressively more difficult to identify exactly who the opposing forces are. There has also been a comparable change in the site of engagement. Modem conflict occurs in the close quarters of urban landscapes in which the technological support we seek to provide our troops can be negated by local circumstances. Into this new milieu, we are continuously injecting innovative support systems whose functionality is designed to assist our troops but whose complexity can threaten to overwhelm them. All this occurs against a background of threat which ensures that acute and chronic forms of stress are a constant presence. This paper captures some of the theoretical and experimental efforts that have been made by the MURI-OPUS (Operator Performance Under Stress) research program regarding combat stress effects as well as means by which this understanding can be applied to optimize human-machine interaction in crucial military situations and also address the after-effects of stress exposure.
