Dyadic Team Interaction and Shared Cognition to Inform Human-Robot Teaming

• Published in: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting 2018-09, Vol.62 (1), p.124-124
• Main Authors: Demir, Mustafa, McNeese, Nathan J., Cooke, Nancy J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1071-1813; 2169-5067
• DOI: 10.1177/1541931218621028

Project overview. The current research aims to understand how human operators effectively team with urban search robot teammates in a dynamic and complex task environment. With that in mind, we examined how shared cognition and restricted language capabilities impact performance of human dyadic teams using a simulated Minecraft task environment. In this human dyadic team, an internal teammate (comparable to robot) identifies the location of victims while navigating inside a game environment that reflects a collapsed building; and an external teammate (comparable to operator) sees their teammate's actions from a different screen and guides them through the environment, tracking the location of victims on a map as they go. In order to examine the effects of language and shared cognition, a two by two design was chosen: (1) in the communication manipulation, participants are either able to communicate using natural language or the internal participant’s communication is limited to three-word utterances; and (2) in the shared cognition manipulation, either the internal participant is made fully aware of the external participant’s restricted representation of the environment and inaccurate map or the internal is unaware of these challenges. Method. This study used a simulated search task, in the Minecraft gaming environment, where two humans acted as a human-robot search team (Bartlett & Cooke, 2015). After signing consent forms, two randomly selected participants completed a half-hour training session for their individual role. Both participants sat in the same room but had a divider between them, and then, interacted to complete a 15-minute simulated search task. The Minecraft environment resembled an office structure with interspersed green, blue, and pink blocks that represented potential targets. Blue and green blocks were meant to represent survivors, whereas pink blocks represented hazards. Pressing a button on green blocks counted positively towards the team’s performance, whereas pressing a button on pink blocks counted negatively towards the team’s performance. Blue blocks were time-sensitive, such that pressing a button on them before eight minutes into the scenario counted positively toward performance, but pressing the button after that time counted against performance. Pressing the button on any block more than once counted negatively towards the team’s performance. A map of this environment was also made available. Inconsistencies were intentiona