Jeff Hansberger - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Jeff Hansberger

About the Journal The International C2 Journal was created in 2006 at the urging of an internatio... more About the Journal The International C2 Journal was created in 2006 at the urging of an international group of command and control professionals including individuals from academia, industry, government, and the military. The Command and Control Research Program (CCRP, of the U.S. Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration, or OASD-NII) responded to this need by bringing together interested professionals to shape the purpose and guide the execution of such a journal. Today, the Journal is overseen by an Editorial Board comprising representatives from many nations. Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense, or any other U.S. Government agency. Rights and Permissions: All articles published in the International C2 Journal remain the intellectual property of the authors and may not be distributed or sold without...

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Commanders face many challenges in their efforts to control the battlefield. Friction (i.e., sour... more Commanders face many challenges in their efforts to control the battlefield. Friction (i.e., sources of delay) in the commander's control system, coupled with the dynamics of the battlefield, requires commanders to act before threatening battlefield events occur. Effective control of the battlefield thus requires accurate predictions. This paper describes the results of a preliminary study concerned with the effect of FeedForward (FF) on the accuracy of predictions in dynamic battle situations. FF, given in the form of expert advice prior to simulated battle, did not reliably improve predictions. Exploratory analyses, however, indicate that FF guided attention to a subset of the task variables important for accurate prediction. Furthermore, FF produced quicker and more decisive victories than practice alone. In conjunction with the positive performance trend for the FF group, these findings indicate that FF facilitates strategy development and may lead to higher levels of Dynamic Decision Making (DDM) performance over time.

IEEE Intelligent Systems, 2013

This paper describes a framework that allows the collaborative development and deployment of proc... more This paper describes a framework that allows the collaborative development and deployment of procedural knowledge for task support in emergency situations. In this framework, procedural knowledge is represented in a wiki using an informal, textual description that is marked up with formal tags based on the representation for hierarchical task networks used in AI planning. Procedural knowledge in the wiki can be used for task support by way of enhanced browsing facilities and the planning capabilities of an HTN planner. The latter supports the automatic composition of procedures to form plans for specific tasks. The tight integration of collaborative editing with deployment is new in this system and advances knowledge engineering for planning domain knowledge, that is, procedural knowledge. An experimental evaluation has shown that the explicit availability of procedural knowledge in emergency situations can reduce procedural uncertainty.

Crisis response situations require collaboration across many different organizations with differe... more Crisis response situations require collaboration across many different organizations with different backgrounds, training, procedures, and goals. The Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 and the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in 2005 emphasized the importance of effective communication and collaboration. In the former, the Multinational Planning Augmentation Team (MPAT) supported brokering of requests for assistance with offers of help from rapidly deployed military and humanitarian assistance facilities. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the National Guard Soldiers and active component Army Soldiers assisted other state, federal, and non-government organizations with varying degrees of efficiency and expediency. Compounding the challenges associated with collaboration during crisis situations is the distributed nature of the supporting organizations and the lack of a designated leader across these military, government, non-government organizations. The Army Research Laboratory is collaborating with the

ABSTRACT Aviation automation has become increasingly complex, multi-functional, and autonomous. T... more ABSTRACT Aviation automation has become increasingly complex, multi-functional, and autonomous. These changes have the potential for both performance increases as well as unanticipated and undesirable side effects such as erosion of motor or cognitive skills, novel types of errors, and so forth. Specific understanding of both the positive and negative effects is critical for reliable and valid measurement of crew automation performance, designing and refining appropriate crew automation training, and redesigning or altering future software and hardware for cockpit automation systems. One method for achieving the required specific understanding of how crews interact with aircraft automation is the use of cognitive task analysis. Specifically, this paper will describe the use of one cognitive task analysis technique (NGOMSL) applied to modeling crew activities that take place during the climb or descent phase of flights. Natural-language GOMS (Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection Rules) was developed by Kieras (1997) based on Card, Moran and Newell's (1983) conceptualization of task decomposition into a hierarchical set of goals, which can be operated on using a set of methods and selection rules. The technique allows the researcher to specify the alternative set(s) of actions that must be carried out in order to achieve a set goal (e.g., the activities that a pilot must carry out to bring a plane down from one specific altitude to another). The usefulness of this technique to the development of a computational cognitive model has been explored for the tasks of making altitude, heading, or airspeed changes based on Air Traffic Control commands during realistic flight scenarios during the climb or descent phases of flight. The task analysis specifically focused on the cognitive demands on the pilot responsible for interacting with the automation during these phases of flight. The task analysis included relevant details of the automation interface such as the panels used for input and output displays, as well as relevant cognitive processes such as perception, understanding, memory recall, evaluation, and decision-making. This information was combined with eye tracking data collected from pilots interacting with a low-fidelity simulator. These data informed our design decisions about what information pilots are acquiring from the flight deck while working with automated systems during climb or descent. The information gained from these sources is now being integrated into a model of crew interactions with the automation and with each other. The presentation will focus on the usefulness of cognitive task analyses in understanding how automation affects the performance of both individual pilots and crews.

Although automation has benefits for commercial aviation, it has led to undesirable consequences.... more Although automation has benefits for commercial aviation, it has led to undesirable consequences. One approach to understanding errors is the development and examination of cognitive models of the flying task. However, the construction of these models requires knowledge about the processes pilots use when they fly and how they acquire readings from their flight instruments. We explored this issue by collecting data from pilots interacting with a Boeing 747-400 desktop simulator. Eye track data provided information about where pilots were looking. This report describes the data obtained and provides suggestions for what these data mean in light of cognitive models.

We describe the experimental methodology developed and employed in a series of experiments within... more We describe the experimental methodology developed and employed in a series of experiments within the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Conflict Modeling, Planning, and Outcomes Exploration (COMPOEX) Program. The primary purpose of the effort was development of tools and methods for analysis, planning and predictive assessment of plans for complex operations where integrated political-military-economic-social-infrastructure and information (PMESII) considerations play decisive roles. As part of the program, our team executed several broad-based experiments, involving dozens of experts from several agencies simultaneously. The methodology evolved from one experiment to another because of the lessons learned. The paper presents the motivation, objectives, and structure of this interagency experiment series; the methods we explored in the experiments; and the results, lessons learned and recommendations for future efforts of such nature.

2007 International Conference on Integration of Knowledge Intensive Multi-Agent Systems, 2007

I-X is a framework that can be used to create an application in which multiple agents adopt a tas... more I-X is a framework that can be used to create an application in which multiple agents adopt a task-centric view of a situation, and which supports the necessary coordination of their activities to respond to that situation. The I-X Process Panel provides the functionality of a to-do list and instant messaging and thus, it is a useful tool when it comes to organizing the response to an emergency. However, I-X goes well beyond this metaphor and provides a number of useful extensions that facilitate the finding and adaptation of plans for teams to respond in dynamic situations. In the Co-OPR (Collaborative Operations for Personnel Recovery) project, the I-X framework has been used to support training exercises for personnel recovery. This paper will describe some of the initial findings that are the result of experiments conducted to evaluate the suitability and extent to which personnel recovery trainees and trainers can be supported by I-X in so-called "Command Post Exercises". The result shows that an I-X application can be useful in such a scenario by eliminating some of the basic problems that often occur.

Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality. Multimodal Interaction

2017 IEEE Virtual Reality (VR)

Proceedings of the 27th ACM International Conference on Multimedia

Informatics

Virtual reality (VR) technologies have opened new possibilities for creating engaging educational... more Virtual reality (VR) technologies have opened new possibilities for creating engaging educational games. This paper presents a serious VR game that immerses players into the activities of lunar exploration missions in a virtual environment. We designed and implemented the VR game with the goal of increasing players’ interest in space science. The game motivates players to learn more about historical facts of space missions that astronauts performed on the Moon in the 1970s. We studied usability and engagement of the game through user experience in both VR and non-VR versions of the game. The experimental results show that the VR version improved their engagement and enhanced the interest of players in learning more about the events of lunar exploration.

Frontiers in Neurology

Background: Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation (tUS) is an emerging technique that uses ultrason... more Background: Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation (tUS) is an emerging technique that uses ultrasonic waves to noninvasively modulate brain activity. As with other forms of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS), tUS may be useful for altering cortical excitability and neuroplasticity for a variety of research and clinical applications. The effects of tUS on cortical excitability are still unclear, and further complications arise from the wide parameter space offered by various types of devices, transducer arrangements, and stimulation protocols. Diagnostic ultrasound imaging devices are safe, commonly available systems that may be useful for tUS. However, the feasibility of modifying brain activity with diagnostic tUS is currently unknown. Objective: We aimed to examine the effects of a commercial diagnostic tUS device using an imaging protocol on cortical excitability. We hypothesized that imaging tUS applied to motor cortex could induce changes in cortical excitability as measured using a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) motor evoked potential (MEP) paradigm. Methods: Forty-three subjects were assigned to receive either verum (n = 21) or sham (n = 22) diagnostic tUS in a single-blind design. Baseline motor cortex excitability was measured using MEPs elicited by TMS. Diagnostic tUS was subsequently administered to the same cortical area for 2 min, immediately followed by repeated post-stimulation MEPs recorded up to 16 min post-stimulation. Results: Verum tUS increased excitability in the motor cortex (from baseline) by 33.7% immediately following tUS (p = 0.009), and 32.4% (p = 0.047) 6 min later, with excitability no longer significantly different from baseline by 11 min post-stimulation. By contrast, subjects receiving sham tUS showed no significant changes in MEP amplitude. Conclusion: These findings demonstrate that tUS delivered via a commercially available diagnostic imaging ultrasound system transiently increases excitability in the motor cortex as measured by MEPs. Diagnostic tUS devices are currently used for internal imaging in many health care settings, and the present results suggest that these same devices Gibson et al. Increased Cortical Excitability Using tUS may also offer a promising tool for noninvasively modulating activity in the central nervous system. Further studies exploring the use of diagnostic imaging devices for neuromodulation are warranted.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting

Technology advancements in unmanned aerial systems have provided greater levels of autonomy to th... more Technology advancements in unmanned aerial systems have provided greater levels of autonomy to the extent that it has fundamentally changed the operator's task and information requirements. This research has applied a task analysis driven approach to identify these information requirements and generated new information visualizations to more effectively present mission critical information to the operators. Experimental results will show the performance benefits across both accuracy and response time to retrieve information and lessons learned related to task driven design and information visualizations.

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per res... more Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing the burden, to Department of Defense, Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports (0704-0188), 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to any penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number.

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting

PsycEXTRA Dataset

IEEE Intelligent Systems, 2013

2007 International Conference on Integration of Knowledge Intensive Multi-Agent Systems, 2007

Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality. Multimodal Interaction

2017 IEEE Virtual Reality (VR)

Proceedings of the 27th ACM International Conference on Multimedia

Informatics

Frontiers in Neurology

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting