SCUDHunt: A Gaming Testbed for Exploring Shared Situational Awareness

Client:
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense (DoD).

Challenge:
In response to the changing global environment and the rise of new forms of threat, DARPA launched the Wargaming the Asymmetric Environment (WAE) program to develop new modeling techniques for predictive modeling of asymmetric group behavior. WAE identifies predictive indicators of attacks of specific terrorists by examining their behavior in the broader context of their political, cultural and ideological environment.

A key part of this program involved understanding how distributed teams - those spread across multiple locations - work together to make decisions and develop shared situational awareness (SSA).

Objective:
Develop a series of experiments, using role-playing exercises and computer games, to explore the influence of factors such as different modes of communication, information timeliness and completeness, and the use of visualizations on SSA ( the ability to identify and comprehend information about what is happening to the team/organization).

ThoughtLink Solution:
To conduct these experiments, ThoughtLink created a web-based game, SCUDHunt, co-developed with the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA). SCUDHunt is an online, multi-player, decision making game featuring allocation of scarce resources under time pressure and uncertainty. It is a simple, yet rich and flexible game, and can be used for research and exercising for virtual team dynamics, command and control, and intelligence operations. SCUDHunt was used to explore a number of factors related to SSA, leadership and command and control, including how modes of communication and visualization effect quality of decisions, the correlation between SSA and quality of decisions, and the relationship of subjective assessments (leadership, ability to visualize, ability to communicate) to quality.

Value Added:
ThoughtLink concluded that both communications and shared visualization greatly contribute to a team's ability to develop SSA. There was, however, surprisingly little difference in which mode of communication was used (e.g., voice communication vs. text chat). Broader results indicate that simple games like SCUDHunt, designed to target specific experimental goals, are a promising technique for conducting research in the field of understanding C3ISR and team behaviors. Read more.

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Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency