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Cusp Catastrophe Models for Cognitive Workload and Fatigue for Teams Making Dynamic Decisions. Nonlinear Dynamics Psychol Life Sci 2024 Jan;28(1):71-109

Date

12/28/2023

Pubmed ID

38153302

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-85181395780 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   4 Citations

Abstract

This study evaluated cusp models of workload and fatigue experienced by teams on a dynamic decision making task. Cognitive workload is the amount of information that a person is required to process in a given way in a fixed amount of time. Fatigue, which is captured by a work curve or a cubic polynomial function, is the loss of work capacity that is produced by an extended amount of time spent on a particular cognitive or physical task. In this experiment, 32 groups of three, four or five members (136 individuals) played two matches of a first-person shooter computer game, and completed subjective measures of workload and cognitive measures of elasticity versus rigidity. For the workload cusp models with elasticity-rigidity components, the bifurcation in performance levels occurred when teams expressed greater emotional intelligence, anxiety, levels of fluid intelligence, coping flexibility, cognitive flexibility, and were more decisive (R2=.54-.56, linear alternative, .09-.23). For workload cusp models assessing subjective ratings of workload, bifurcation occurred with groups who reported greater levels of performance demand and effort required (R2=.51, linear alternative, .20). For fatigue cusp models, bifurcation occurred for groups that played fewer rounds of the game before winning or losing the match, or came from the smaller-sized groups, which were supplemented by computer-generated agents (R2=.66-.67, linear alternative, .21-.68). Results supported the general-ization of the cusp models for workload and fatigue to situations requiring teamwork in dynamic decision making environments. The study also raised new questions about the role of autonomic synchrony in the workload or fatigue processes and similarity of the dynamics of human-autonomy teams compared to all-human teams.

Author List

Guastello SJ, McGuigan LM

Author

Stephen Guastello BA,MA,PhD Professor in the Psychology department at Marquette University




MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Cognition
Emotional Intelligence
Fatigue
Humans
Task Performance and Analysis
Workload