How tasks help shape the neurodynamic rhythms and organizations of teams

Abstract

We have modeled neurophysiologic indicators of Engagement and Workload to determine the influence the task has on the resulting neurodynamic rhythms and organizations of teams. The tasks included submarine piloting and navigation and anti-submarine warfare military simulations, map navigation tasks for high school students and business case discussions for entrepreneurial / corporate teams. The team composition varied from two to six persons and all teams had teamwork experience with the tasks. For each task condition teams developed task-specific neurodynamic rhythms. These task-specific rhythms were present during much of the task but could be interrupted by exogenous or endogenous disturbances to the team or environment. The effects of these disturbances could be rapidly detected by changes in the entropy levels of the team neurodynamics symbol streams. These results suggest the possibility of performing task-specific comparisons of the rhythms and organizations across teams expanding the opportunities for rapid detection of less than successful performances and targeted interventions. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.