Soldiers are required to perform basic combat tasks, such as move, shoot, and communicate, and to make decisions under many environmental stressors, including continuous operations and information-processing tasks driven by C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) and other types of information systems. Knowledge requires information processing, and increased processing is usually the root cause of increased error. Friend-or-foe decision-making research has primarily focused on the types of equipment being used and task difficulty levels to examine shoot–don’t shoot errors; however, newer theoretical approaches may enhance cognitive performance research and models focused on decision-making performance. Higher explanatory power and better prediction models may be created using multitheoretical individual factors derived from transactional-stress and information-processing theories. The purpose of this study was to examine multitheoretical individual factor effects of emotional and cognitive predictor variables under dual-task simulated shoot–don’t shoot target scenarios. A quantitative repeated-measures approach was used with a convenience sample of 12 U.S. Army soldiers ages 18 to 34 years.
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