Information flow and development of coordination in distributed supervisory control teams

This article presents results of a study to examine the flow of information between members of a new task team conducting a distributed supervisory control task. The emphasis of this project was on the effects of information presentation and message transmission delays on the development of effective information flow among human operators. The project focused on the earliest stages of team performance to explore how teams begin to refine distributed task coordination. The task simulation used in this project was a distributed navigation task based on a commercially available computer game (Spectre VR(TM)). Teams of three ("out the window" [OTW] observer, "long-range radar" observer, and a driver without direct visual information) were required to navigate a vehicle in a dynamic and potentially hostile environment containing obstacles and moving hazards. The goal of the task was to accumulate points through capturing nags. Information presentation was manipulated through standard game selections of wireframe versus filled polygon graphics rendering and the optional presentation of hints about visible objects to the OTW observer. Message transmission between the observers and the driver was also manipulated through changing communication baud rates between computers. A total of 51 undergraduate student teams participated in the study. Results indicated that the number of words exchanged between observers and the driver was a significant covariate affecting team performance (measured by number of flags captured and total score). Presentation of hints negatively affected team total score and flags captured. The interaction of graphics shapes and hints combined to have a significant effect on total score. These results are discussed in terms of shared mental models and information exchange needs to support coordinated task performance implications for future team-based human-system interface designs.