Neuroergonomics: Quantitative Modeling of Individual,Shared,and Team Neurodynamic Information

Abstract

Objective:

The aim of this study was to use the same quantitative measure and scale to directly compare the neurodynamic information/organizations of individual team members with those of the team.

Background:

Team processes are difficult to separate from those of individual team members due to the lack of quantitative measures that can be applied to both process sets.

Method:

Second-by-second symbolic representations were created of each team member’s electroencephalographic power, and quantitative estimates of their neurodynamic organizations were calculated from the Shannon entropy of the symbolic data streams. The information in the neurodynamic data streams of health care (n = 24), submarine navigation (n = 12), and high school problem-solving (n = 13) dyads was separated into the information of each team member, the information shared by team members, and the overall team information.

Results:

Most of the team information was the sum of each individual’s neurodynamic information. The remaining team information was shared among the team members. This shared information averaged ~15% of the individual information, with momentary levels of 1% to 80%.

Conclusion:

Continuous quantitative estimates can be made from the shared, individual, and team neurodynamic information about the contributions of different team members to the overall neurodynamic organization of a team and the neurodynamic interdependencies among the team members.

Application:

Information models provide a generalizable quantitative method for separating a team’s neurodynamic organization into that of individual team members and that shared among team members.