Miscommunications and Context Awareness

Steve Poteet (Boeing, US)Cheryl Giammanco (Army Research Lab, US)

Jitu Patel (Dstl, UK)Anne Kao (Boeing, US)Ping Xue (Boeing, US)

Iya Whiteley (Systems Engineering & Assessment, UK)

International Technology Alliance Conference

September 22-24, 2009

Overall Study Goal

To discover effective ways of minimizing miscommunication and to discover how communication of contextual knowledge can improve mutual understanding during coalition operations.

• Examine and identify categories & patterns of miscommunication due to variations of language use

• Examine and identify categories & patterns of miscommunication due to background and cultural differences

• Examine and identify categories & patterns of miscommunication due to contextual differences in general

Study Aim

• Collect additional data on miscommunication between coalition partners

• Refine our previously identified categories of miscommunication due to variations in language and language use

• Examine and identify categories of contextual knowledge that are essential for successful communication

Omni Fusion 2008

• Distributed, federated simulation based experiment conducted at BCBL and other US Battle Labs (Sept. 03-19, 2008)

• Over 230 participants from US, UK, Australia, and Canada

• Purpose: study division-level issues involving use of the network and network degradation

• Objective: – Determine how commanders use the network to understand,

visualize, describe, direct and assess full spectrum operations– How commanders do so if network is degraded or absent

Research Design

• Participants• ABCA (America-Britain-Canada-Australia) military personnel

who were participants of Omni Fusion 2008 Simulation Exercise (OF08 SIMEX) at the Battle Command Battle Laboratory (BCBL) in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, US

• Participation is completely voluntary

• Method of Data Capture• Questionnaires distributed to them during the exercise – 116

responses• One hour follow-up interviews with 4

• Questions Asked• Nature & source of the miscommunication• When it was identified • The effect of the miscommunication on performance• How and when it was resolved

Miscommunications Reported

• 14 reported one or more– 1 reported more than 3– 5 reported 2 or 3– 8 reported 1

• Most common medium– Email (7), VOIP/Audio (5), IWS/Chat (4), face-to-face

(4)• Most miscommunications were identified

immediately• Most problems were resolved in a few minutes,

but 2 took a few hours and 1 was not resolved until end of the day

Additional Survey Results

• Type of Impacts on Miscommunications– 27 responses– 22%: loss of efficient use of time– 22%: loss of accuracy (increase in human error)– 19%: loss of situation awareness

• Non-linguistic factors of miscommunication– 23 responses– 29%: lack of a Common Operational Picture (COP),

and Shared Situation Awareness

Suggested Methods of Prevention

• 22 responses

• 32%: use a standardized language (e.g. NATO or DoD dictionary) would help

• 27%: multinational combined training prior to operations, exercises or experiments

• Sample is too small to draw conclusions

New Evidence Supporting Prior Hypotheses

• Standard terminology not used– UK used NATO and US used CENTCOM

• While basic concepts were shared, they are often expressed in different terminology

• E.g. acronyms, jargon, slang

• Acronym use caused confusion– More ambiguous because the length is shorter– E.g. AI (Air Interdiction) was mis-typed as IA

(Influence Activities – e.g. PsyOps – in UK, or Information Operations in US)

– E.g. NGO (Non-Governmental Organizations) was mistook to mean OGA (other [non-military] government organizations

More on Jargon and Slang

• Besides US-UK differences, these were compounded by different uses in Navy, Marine etc.

• E.g. “leaving 16 and a buff” was not understood – Means B52 for US Air Force

• E.g. “coming in hot”– To Air Force: coming in fast– To ground force: coming in shooting

• E.g. Commander said “burn the brief”– Burn it on the CD, not set it on fire

New Findings

• Important to look at miscommunication in ‘context’

• Crucial to have a shared common understanding of the ‘context’

• In a network centric environment, use of language must take on a bigger role in establishing and maintaining shared context or common ground

Examples of Context in Iraq War

• 1st pilot talked to controller about one group, and controller confirmed it was hostile

• Controller broke off radio contact• 2nd pilot spotted another group of friendly

vehicles and spoke to 1st pilot about it; controller did not know

• Controller came back, 1st pilot asked to confirm if there is friendly force there (referring to 2nd group); controller thought he was referring to the 1st group and said no

• A fatality occurred as a result

US - UK Team Communication Differences

• Differences in language and language use

• Differences in concepts including differences in doctrine and conceptual mismatch

• Differences in procedures such as planning process

• Differences in organization structure

Potential Mitigation Strategies for Coalition Miscommunication

• Multinational combined training prior to operations– The more people work together, the more they

understand each other• Cultural awareness and communication training

– Encourage questions– Be aware of the interlocutor’s context

• Standardized terminology– Only with limited use in certain situations

• Glossaries and other communication tools– Electronic tools will be useful in some situations

More Study of Context

• What major contextual elements are critical to communication during coalition operations

• How do these elements interact with the use of language to contribute to successful communication or lead to miscommunication

• How can knowledge of these contextual elements can be captured and provided before an operation, such as in training or in the form of information tools.

Summary

• Confirmation of previous findings

• Importance of context and shared context awareness in understanding

• Potential strategies for minimizing miscommunications

Questions or Comments?