Theory and Evaluation of Battlefield Visualization in Context

摘要

This paper describes an on-going effort to develop operational visualization concepts and their technical implementations to support sensemaking skills based on the Army's Field Manual (FM) 3-0 doctrinal information on 'Visualization, Detection, and Decide' requirements. A theory of visualization is presented from the stance that visualization is embedded and situated in human endeavors, and its cognitive activities. A visualization tool from Sensemaking Support System (S3) is used to evaluate this theory by using case vignettes from a Stability and Security Operation (SASO) domain to measure visualization impact variables. The evaluation metric was validated with eleven military personnel who are familiar with SASO situations. In addition to the inter-rater metrics and correlations analyses, a linear prediction equation that relates situation understanding as a function of evidential cues and Level 3 situation awareness is derived. The strength of the model is demonstrated by its high correlation factor (R2 =83.7%) indicating its efficacy for use as a situation understanding prediction metric.