ABSTRACT

Since the 1980s, our research groups have actively pursued different angles of team cognition, studied multiple theoretical perspectives of teamwork as emergent within complex environments, observed how teamwork is constrained by context and environment, and developed and tested new intelligent decision aids to improve performance in various ways. This work is structured using two windows of opportunity: (1) research completed prior to 2000 at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Human Engineering Division, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, during which time the first author, Michael D. McNeese, worked as a senior scientist and director of the Collaborative Systems Technology Laboratory; and (2) research subsequently conducted at the College of Information Sciences and Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, during which time both authors were part of the MINDS (Multidisciplinary Initiatives in Naturalistic Decision Systems) Group. The objective of this chapter is to provide the reader with an interdisciplinary viewpoint of the human, social, and technological significance of teams and team performance within the purview of macrocognition.