Dynamic Representation for Evaluating the Effect of Moderators and Stress on Performance (DREEMS)

As Soldiers experience a buildup of fatigue and stressors, they can experience performance decrements that may have catastrophic effects on complex missions. For analysts to understand the causes and effects of fatigue and the supporting data that characterizes fatigue, they must accurately represent and assess the cognitive effects of fatigue on decision making and physical activities. Understanding and studying the impact of fatigue and other stressors on performance will ultimately enable the US Army to improve Small Soldier Unit (SSU) survivability and operational effectiveness. Under this effort, we are proposing to develop and evaluate a Dynamic Representation for Evaluating the Effect of Moderators and Stress on Performance (DREEMS). DREEMS is a toolkit to identify and characterize fatigue and other stressors; define elements of operational effectiveness affected by fatigue and stressors in terms of critical tasks and processes; and enable a methodology for finding, analyzing, and using data to characterize the effects of fatigue and stressors on operational effectiveness. DREEMS is a scalable, flexible, and extensible solution to meet the Army’s need to understand and characterize how fatigue and other moderators affect Soldier performance.