Approaches for assessing communication in human-autonomy teams

Abstract

Abstract Evaluation of team communication can provide critical insights into team dynamics, cohesion, trust, and performance on joint tasks. Although many communication-based measures have been tested and validated for human teams, this review article extends this research by identifying key approaches specific to human-autonomy teams. It is not possible to identify all approaches for all situations, though the following seem to generalize and support multi-size teams and a variety of military operations. Therefore, this article will outline several key approaches to assessing communication, associated data requirements, example applications, verification of methods through HAT use cases, and lessons learned, where applicable. Some approaches are based on the structure of team communication; others draw from dynamical systems theory to consider perspectives across different timescales; other approaches leverage features of team members’ voices or facial expressions to detect emotional states that can provide windows into other workings of the team; still others consider the content of communication to produce insights. Taken together, these approaches comprise a varied toolkit for deriving critical information about how team interactions affect, and are affected by, coordination, trust, cohesion, and performance outcomes. Future research directions describe four critical areas for further study of communication in human-autonomy teams.