Principles for Intelligent Decision Aiding

Abstract

The Tactical Decision Making Under Stress (TADMUS) program is being conducted to apply recent developments in decision theory and human-system interaction technology to the design of a decision support system for enhancing tactical decision making under the highly complex conditions involved in antiair warfare scenarios. Our goal is to present decision support information in a format that minimizes any mismatches between the cognitive characteristics of the human decision maker and the design and response characteristics of the decision support system. This includes two major thrusts. The first thrust involves the central hypothesis of the TADMUS program: presenting decision makers with decision support tools which parallel the cognitive strategies they already employ, thus reducing the number of decisionmaking errors. Hence, prototype display development has been based on decisionmaking models postulated by naturalistic decision-making theory, such as the recognition-primed decision model and explanation-based reasoning. The second thrust involves incorporating human-system interaction principles which are expected to reduce cognitive processing demands and thereby mitigate decision errors caused by cognitive overload, which have been documented through research and experimentation. Topics include a discussion of: (1) the theoretical background for the TADMUS program; (2) the decision support and human-system interaction principles incorporated to reduce the cognitive processing load on the decision maker (3) a brief description of the types of errors made by decision makers and interpretations of the cause of these errors based on the cognitive psychology literature; and (4) a description of the decision support system.