Putting the Science Back in C2: What Do the Buzzwords Really Mean?

Abstract

Current command and control "C2" terminology is laden with buzzwords that may, or may not, be useful to helping advance the science of C2 "e.g., effects-based operations "EBO" or sensemaking". In theory each term was devised for a reason, however, more often than not the reasons are lost and the terms are bantered about as "proof" of a good system, experiment, etc. We review some of the major terms and their history, as well as the potential evidence for their scientific integrity. Next we discuss how best to understand these terms by investigating their psychological "e.g., cognitive and social" as well as decision making roots. Finally we show how one may develop experiments and then eventually systems that either test or use these terms as they were originally defined. We give examples of how we are attempting to test these ideas in the laboratory as well as how others may test them in the future. We conclude with some discussion about the usefulness of buzzwords in the C2 realm as well as ways to keep them effective exemplars of their original meanings thus helping to advance the theory as well as knowledge of C2 systems.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2007
Accession Number
ADA481256

Entities

People

  • Denise Aleva
  • George Reis
  • John P. McIntire
  • Paul Havig

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Cognition
  • Cognitive Science
  • Command And Control
  • Command And Control Systems
  • Dictionaries
  • Homeland Security
  • Human Behavior
  • Information Exchange
  • Information Operations
  • Military Operations
  • Network Centric Warfare
  • Psychology
  • Situational Awareness
  • War Games
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Educational Psychology
  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.

Technology Areas

  • Fully Networked C3
  • Fully Networked C3 - Command and Control