IMAGES: Instrument for the Measurement and Advancement of Group Environmental SA

The objective of the proposed work is to assess and enhance team situational awareness in distributed, mixed-synchrony environments. To do so, we will integrate existing state-of-the-art conceptual mapping and analysis technologies with a cutting edge peer-to-peer infrastructure. The aggregate tool will have the ability to construct a representation of each team member's situational awareness (using text-based analysis tools), associate each representation with the positional context of team member, identify discrepancies within the team and/or between the team and its commander, and suggest possible strategies for greater team synchronization and understanding of the commander's intent. The measures, diagnosis, and remediation will be communicated using dynamic, intuitive visualizations. We call this tool for improving team cognition IMAGES, an Instrument for the Measurement and Advancement of Group Environmental SA (situational awareness).