Information Gathering and Decisionmaking Under Stress

Abstract

An experiment to investigate the effects of cognitive stress on decisionmaking performance is described. The paradigm involves a single decisionmaker (DM) whose job is to classify a submarine sonar return as coming from a friendly or enemy boat, on the basis of difference in average pump noise frequency between the two classes. After being given the value of the unknown submarine's measured pump frequency, the subject may classify the submarine or (for a cost) ask for more information. This information is chosen to be either another raw measurement (probe) or the opinion of an automated consultant. Cognitive stress is operationalized through time pressure and an intrusive secondary task. Two distinct subject populations are used: civilian (engineering firm employees and college students) and military (grade 0-4 or above). Four independent variables manipulated: stress level, discrimination difficulty, relative information cost between measurement and opinion, and consultant expertise relative to the subject's measurement. Keywords: Decisionmaking under stress; Information seeking; Cognitive stress.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1990
Accession Number
ADA218233

Entities

People

  • Daniel Serfaty
  • Elliot E. Entin

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • C4I
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Antisubmarine Warfare
  • Civilian Personnel
  • Classification
  • Cognition
  • Command And Control
  • Detection
  • Human Behavior
  • Measurement
  • Military Personnel
  • Military Research
  • Naval Operations
  • Navy
  • Personnel Management
  • Psychology
  • Students
  • Systems Engineering
  • Training

Readers

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Organizational Psychology.
  • Strategic Security Studies