Normative-Descriptive Modeling of Human Teams: A 15-Year Perspective

Abstract

For almost 15 years we have been conducting combined analytical modeling and empirical research in the area of distributed decisionmaking and coordination in multi-person teams. Our emphasis has been on the coordination of information, resources and actions within the team. Using a unique team-in-the-loop simulation environment, experiments have been designed and operationalized to examine team decisionmaking and coordination processes, and to manipulate those aspects of the problem that affect these processes. Our concomitant modeling efforts have been geared to establish a mathematical framework for explaining and predicting team performance and strategy. Our approach blends normative mathematical theories for team decisionmaking with descriptive facets that capture known, and observed, human cognitive limitations and biases. The resulting normative-descriptive models have provided excellent predictions of the actual data collected in the experiments, and have shed new light on the nature of team coordination processes.