ABSTRACT
This paper suggests an alternative approach to develop the necessary competences to handle decision making in complex environments, stemming from the challenges that the military has faced in the past ten years of conflicts. However, the authors believe, the ideas suggested here can be employed and benefit any other field requiring agile and adaptive thinking. The conflicts in which our Armed Forces are engaged are largely characterized by Interactive Complexity: the system is nonlinear, its proportions unstable and cause-effect patterns ambiguous. Large civilian presence and involvement, difficulties in identifying possible threats, high tempo, and dense terrain are typical features of the so called "three block war", introduced by Gen Krulak, which requires the capability of making a broad range of decisions in little or no time at the micro tactical level. In order to obtain optimal 124situational awareness, it is necessary to provide the necessary skill set (not tools, not rules) that allows to 'read' the operational environment and understand its regulating rules, rather than applying frames of reference that are derived from the Domestic environment. The capability of learning from the Context, stretching the dominant mental models and transcend the obvious is crucial. Research suggests that visual orientation can be an important feature for a group leader especially in unban scenarios; what one sees and how he interprets this can be decisive. Furthermore, he must do it fast, which is why the visual dimension and Intuition emerged as so critical: he must get that "Coup d'Oeil" that was considered crucial by Napoleon, and by many after him. This paper suggests a training framework to develop effective and innovative solutions by Modeling & Simulation (M&S) and specifically by Serious Games, to establish a solid ground for re-framing and creative decision making. The proposed approach moves away from traditional Simulation and Gaming products, where the tendency is to represent reality. We suggest a training that focuses on developing cognitive skills to recognize what is salient in an Operational Context characterized by a high level of Interactive Complexity.
Serious Games and Agent Driven Simulation based on Intelligent Agents and Human Behavioral Models Libraries are the proposed M&S methodologies. Serious Games can provide an opportunity to improve performances with reduced efforts and great attention to story and emotional involvement; Agent Driven Simulation based on Intelligent Agents and Human Behavioral models allows to create complex scenarios, considering even the behavior of individual agents, and, at the same time, can be developed rapidly and cost efficiently. This paper suggests an "educational path" from portable serious game solution to more complex and immersive synthetic environments which can educate the user's intuitive thought in recognizing key patterns that are contextually salient. At the same time we want to encourage user involvement so as to support some of the key factors in tactical decision making process: speed and stress. The idea here is to develop an "educational path" to create a set of tools that move from general cultural models to very specific contextual elements using scenarios with validated notions of context "to drive" the acquisition of expert knowledge by different scalable architectures, representations, and methodologies for decision makers' education. The use of Behavioral Models can support this cultural and technological "scalable" approach by providing common, well validated, basic models to re-create agents' actions that could be applied to different scenarios. This paper will also sketch out some different solutions for ergonomic issues: from the simple hand-held device to immersive environment with all senses involved: sight, sound and smell.
