The Army's ongoing transformation to Future Combat Systems (FCS) requires an unprecedented alliance of humans and machines. Creating an alliance that actually improves, and does not impede, battle command is a human systems integration challenge for FCS and particularly the area of command and control (C2). To address that challenge, the FCS C2 program is investigating future battle command concepts at the small unit level. The FCS C2 effort, led by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Communications Electronics and Engineering Command (CECOM) with a focus on human performance by the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI), included a series of command-in-the-loop experiments from October 2001 to March 2003. This report summarizes research methods and findings on human performance across four iterative and exploratory FCS C2 experiments. The human performance findings reported are based on subjective measures and highly detailed objective measures of the command group's verbal and human-computer interactions. Overall, the results provide an emerging empirical database on the C2 functions and tasks required by an FCS command group in collaboration with prototype C2 systems. More problematic conclusions on workload and training are followed by more promising conclusions on user-based involvement and proactive research, and particularly their potential for solving workload and training problems.

"The ARI Workshop, Training Critical Thinking Skills for Battle Command, was held on 5-6 December 2001 at Ft. Leavenworth. The purpose of the Workshop was to: (1) provide an overview of current research in critical thinking and training critical thinking (CT), (2) provide a forum for identifying and discussing issues related to training CT in the Army; and (3) develop recommendations for training and for future directions for research and development in the area of CT training. Participants with a variety of expertise attended - Military officers, instructors in CT and academic researchers in CT. The following papers were presented: Critical Thinking in the 21st Century by MG (Ret.) Lon Maggart; Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking by Diane Halpern; A Framework for Critical Thinking Research and Training by Susan Fischer; A three part theory of Critical Thinking: Dialogue, Mental Models and Reliability by Marvin Cohen; Critical Thinking in Teams by Daniel Serfaty; and A simulation Tool for Critical Thinking Training by Marvin Cohen. The Proceedings includes these papers, with the exception of the Serfaty paper. Workshop participants discussed a variety of issues related to training CT and their recommendations for training and future research are included in the Proceedings."--DTIC.

Discussing issues and concepts relating to human factors in simulation, this book covers theory and application in fields such as space, ships, submarines, naval aviation, and commercial aviation. The authors develop and expand on concepts in simulator usage particularly specific characteristics and issues of simulation and their effect on the validity and functionality of simulators as a training device. The chapters contain in depth discussions of these particular characteristics and issues. They also incorporate theories pertaining to the motivational aspects of training, simulation of social events, and PC based simulation.