Predicting and interpreting identification errors in military vehicle training using multidimensional scaling

    Authors

    C. J. Bohil; N. A. Higgins;J. R. Keebler

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Ergonomics

    Keywords

    vehicle identification; training; incidental learning; multidimensional; scaling; OBJECT IDENTIFICATION; CATEGORY; Engineering, Industrial; Ergonomics; Psychology, Applied; Psychology

    Abstract

    We compared methods for predicting and understanding the source of confusion errors during military vehicle identification training. Participants completed training to identify main battle tanks. They also completed card-sorting and similarity-rating tasks to express their mental representation of resemblance across the set of training items. We expected participants to selectively attend to a subset of vehicle features during these tasks, and we hypothesised that we could predict identification confusion errors based on the outcomes of the card-sort and similarity-rating tasks. Based on card-sorting results, we were able to predict about 45% of observed identification confusions. Based on multidimensional scaling of the similarity-rating data, we could predict more than 80% of identification confusions. These methods also enabled us to infer the dimensions receiving significant attention from each participant. This understanding of mental representation may be crucial in creating personalised training that directs attention to features that are critical for accurate identification. Practitioner Summary: Participants completed military vehicle identification training and testing, along with card-sorting and similarity-rating tasks. The data enabled us to predict up to 84% of identification confusion errors and to understand the mental representation underlying these errors. These methods have potential to improve training and reduce identification errors leading to fratricide.

    Journal Title

    Ergonomics

    Volume

    57

    Issue/Number

    6

    Publication Date

    1-1-2014

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    844

    Last Page

    855

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000337591800004

    ISSN

    0014-0139

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