Macrocognition in Teams: Theories and Methodologies

Military problems are becoming more complex, requiring teams to address problems rather than relying solely on individuals. In addition, problems are addressed at an international level, requiring agile coalition team collaboration. This team collaboration involves many operational tasks such as team decision-making or course of action selection, developing shared understanding and intelligence analysis. Teams must perform these operational tasks under various situational demands including severe time pressure, information and knowledge uncertainty, large amounts of dynamic information and across different team characteristics.Recent research in this area has focused on various aspects of human collaborative decision-making and the underlying cognitive processes while describing those processes at different levels of detail. Describing these cognitive processes at different levels of granularity has made it difficult to discuss and compare research results. Therefore the theoretical construct of 'macrocognition in teams' was developed to facilitate cognitive research in team collaboration, which will enable a common level of granularity when defining, measuring and discussing the cognitive processes in team collaboration. Macrocognition is defined as both the internalized and externalized mental processes employed by team members in complex, one-of-a-kind, collaborative problem solving.Macrocognition in Teams provides readers with a greater understanding of the macrocognitive processes which support collaborative team activity, showcasing current research, theories, methodologies and tools. It will be of direct relevance to academics, researchers and practitioners interested in group/team interaction, performance, development and training.Letsky, Michael P. is the author of 'Macrocognition in Teams: Theories and Methodologies', published 2008 under ISBN 9780754673255 and ISBN 0754673251.