A Human Experience Approach to Optimizing Simulator Fidelity

Abstract

A key element of designing simulation based training systems is the need to identify what elements of the operational task experience need to be replicated in the simulation environment (i.e., simulator fidelity). Too much fidelity may result in overly expensive systems that do not necessarily provide better training. Too little or the wrong kind of fidelity may result in systems that do not support the required training. Thus, a careful balance is needed to achieve the best return on training investment (ROTI). A challenge is that this process is far from straight forward and often involves subjective assessments by subject matter experts or human factors professionals. A more objective process for identifying the value of the right level of fidelity is needed. The human experience-based approach to fidelity optimization presented herein seeks to address this challenge by supplementing a traditional task analysis with a tool to objectively identify the necessary experiential cues required to support a task.