An Integrative Simulation to Study Team Cognition in Emergency Crisis Management

Abstract

Teamwork has become one of the hallmarks of emergency crisis management (ECM). Success in managing emergency situations is highly dependent on teams working together to accomplish prioritized goals. Therefore, given the importance of teamwork, team cognition has been realized as an important component to address the emerging complexity, extreme workload, and uncertain conditions that can underlie emergency response. Many variables affect teams and their subsequent cognition. Understanding the effects of awareness, attention, temporality, common ground, team mental model development, and culture on team cognition provides insight into effective and efficient management of emergencies. As a research group, for more than a decade, we have studied team cognition within the context of ECM through the basis of simulations using the NeoCITIES platform. The purpose of this paper is to share our experiences using the NeoCITIES platform to conduct basic team cognitive research and share our visions for future research trajectories for the greater Human Factors community.