Implementing Emergin Technology to Incorporate Realistic Stressors into Training Systems

A topic that is of considerable interest in the military is how to implement stress into training and simulation--how to provide trainees with realistic exposure to the military operational environmemt. However, one current problem in the design and acquisition of simulation and training systems is that they are often fielded without the capability to incorporate realistic stress exercises. They are fielded this way not because of a meer oversight, but because information is not available to the designer on how to implement combat-relevant stressors. The primary objective of the proposed research is to develop a Combat Stress Test Bed (CSTB) to evaluate specfic technologies and training approaches for implementing stress in training devices and simulations. The development of the CSTB will provide a means to evaluate the applicability of emerging technologies for simulating the stress environment, provide a test bed for evaluating the effectiveness of alternative approaches for implementing stress training, and serve as a prototype for a low-cost desktop stress trainer.