Tactical Decision Making under Categorical Uncertainty with Applications to Modeling and Simulation
Abstract
The Network Centric Warfare approach to command and control emphasizes decentralized decision making. Consequently, decision makers must comprehend and evaluate information to determine the optimal course of action. This study examines how different categories of uncertainty (ambiguous/missing, conflicting, baseline) and individual differences affect response time in decision-making tasks. The researchers elicited real-world tactical scenarios from veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom in which uncertainty was present. Nine scenarios were given to 28 participants at the Command General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The participants were asked to make a decision; their responses were recorded and analyzed. The results indicate that category of uncertainty and scenario difficulty are significant factors in determining response time. No individual difference factors were found to be significant. These findings have the potential to improve human behavior modeling, tactical simulations, and representations of complex task environments.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA493954
Entities
People
- Kacey E. Kemmerer
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School