Using Simulations to Model Shared Mental Models

Abstract

Good team members seem to have the ability to simulate what others on the team will do in different situations. Team researchers have long studied what makes an effective team. Their methodology has been to examine how high and low performing teams accomplish team-related tasks. They have suggested that a good team-member has three knowledge components (Cannon-Bowers, Salas, & Converse, 1993): (1) Knowledge of own capabilities [meta-knowledge], (2) Knowledge of the task, and (3) Knowledge about the capabilities of their teammates. Most researchers have suggested that these three components are deeply inter-related; without any one of these, a person is not a good team member. However, without a computational theory, these claims can be difficult to examine empirically. The focus of this paper is the third component, the cognitive modeling done of a teammate's cognitive processes. This shared understanding of teammates frequently called a shared mental model (Mathieu, Heffner, Goodwin, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 2000). We start with the premise that humans use themselves as an initial model of their teammate, and then refine it as the team (and individuals within the team) gains experience. Our primary research goal is to create a computational theory of teamwork by modeling the individuals within the team so that we can eventually build plausible robots for teamwork and human-robot interaction.