ABSTRACT
The last decade in team research has seen a rapid increase in the development and utilization of synthetic tasks to investigate the complexities of team interaction and performance. Synthetic task environments (STEs) are designed to mimic complex multi-role team tasks but are scaled to be distributed using more standard technology (Elliott, Dalrymple, Regian, & Schiflett, 2001). Through the utilization of STEs, researchers are able to systematically vary aspects of the task in order to train both cognitive and behavioral responses, but do so in a controlled setting. Moreover, as discussed by Kozlowski and DeShon in this volume, what is critical for training transfer is high psychological fidelity and not necessarily high physical fidelity (see also Bjork, 1994; Patrick, 1992). STEs offer the flexibility of high psychological fidelity while using cost-efficient low physical fidelity simulations. As such, with these STE systems, laboratory studies of complex task performance increase in external validity due to the increases in operational relevance (Elliott et al., 2001; Elliott, Hollenbeck, Schiflett, & Dalrymple, 2001).
