Technical Report 1110

Instructional Strategies for Training Teams in

Virtual Environments

Donald R. Lampton

U.S. Army Research Institute

Daniel P. McDonald, Mar E. Rodriguez, James E. Cotton, and

Christina S. Morris

University of Central Florida

Consortium Research Fellows Program

James Parsons and Glenn Martin

Institute for Simulation and Training

March 2001

20010510 069

United States Army Research Institute

for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
U.S. Army Research Institute

for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

A Directorate of the U.S. Total Army Personnel Command

EDGAR M. JOHNSON

Director

Technical Review by

Bruce Sterling

Bob G. Witmer

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REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE

1. REPORT DATE (dd-mm-yy)

March 2001

2. REPORT TYPE

Final

4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Instructional Strategies for Training Teams in

Virtual Environments

6. AUTHOR(S) Donald R. Lampton (U.S. Army Research Institute),

Daniel P. McDonald, Mar E. Rodriguez, James E. Cotton, and

Morris (University of Central Florida), James Parsons and Glenn

Martin (Institute for Simulation and Training)

7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)

U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

ATTN: TAPC-ARI-IF

12350 Research Parkway

Orlando, FL 32826-3276

9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES)

U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

5001 Eisenhower Avenue

Alexandria, VA 22333-5600

3. DATES COVERED (from... to)

October, 1998 - December, 2000

5a CONTRACT OR GRANT NUMBER

N/A

5b. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER

2Q262785A

5c. PROJECT NUMBER

A790

5d. TASK NUMBER

202a.

5e. WORK UNIT NUMBER

H01

8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER

10. MONITOR ACRONYM

ARI

11. MONITOR REPORT NUMBER

Technical Report 1110

12. DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

14. ABSTRACT (Maximum 200 words):

This report describes the design and implementation ofthe Fully Immersive Team Training (Mil) research system, and the

first experiment conducted with that system. FITT was developed to support research on the use of distributed Virtual

Environments (VEs) for training dismounted infantry. The hardware and software functional requirements included:

locomotion, object manipulation and aiming, communication among participants, design of avatars for participants and

computer generated forces, data capture and playback, as well as a host of networking issues. The first experiment examined

instructional strategies involving how and when to give guidance during team training with VEs. Ninety-four college students

participated in the experiment. Two-person teams engaged in search missions in VEs depicting building interiors. Teams were

given guidance either before (demonstration), during (coaching), or after (replay) the first practice mission, or not given any

guidance at all (control group). Performance measures included: speed and accuracy ofsearch, communications, and security

procedures. Results indicated that the FITT interface worked well in enabling the participants to move in and interact with the

VEs, and to act as a team. The feasibility ofimplementing and administrating each of the instructional strategies in a VE

training context was demonstrated.

15. SUBJECT TERMS

Virtual Environments, Virtual Reality, Dismounted Infantry, Team Training, Presence, Simulator Sickness, Training Transfer

; SECURITY CLASSIFfCATON OF %

16. REPORT

Unclassified

17. ABSTRACT

Unclassified

18. THIS PAGE

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ABSTRACT

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20. NUMBER

OF PAGES

55

21. RESPONSIBLE PERSON

(Name and Telephone Number)

Mr. Donald R. Lampton

(407) 384-3989
Technical Report 1110

Instructional Strategies for Training Teams in

Virtual Environments

Donald R. Lampton

U.S. Army Research Institute

Daniel P. McDonald, Mar E. Rodriguez, James E. Cotton, and

Christina S. Morris

University of Central Florida

Consortium Research Fellows Program

James Parsons and Glenn Martin

Institute for Simulation and Training

Simulator Systems Research Unit

Stephen L. Goldberg, Chief

U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

5001 Eisenhower Avenue, Alexandria, Virginia 22333-5600

March 2001

Army Project Number Personnel Performance and

2O262785A790 Training Technology

Approved for public release; distribution unlimited.

in
FOREWORD

The U.S. Army has made a substantial commitment to the use of simulation for training,

readiness, concept development, and test and evaluation. Virtual Environment (VE) technology,

which uses position tracking and real-time update of visual, auditory, and other displays (e.g.,

tactile) has the potential to provide simulation-based training for dismounted soldiers. Since VE

technologies are relatively new, there is little information to indicate where and how they are

best used for dismounted soldier training. The U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral

and Social Sciences (ARI) has established a research program to determine the characteristics of

the VE technologies needed to allow dismounted soldiers to fight on virtual battlefields. In

addition to research needed to determine appropriate VE user interfaces, research is needed to

determine appropriate instructional strategies for VE training applications. This research should

identify ways oftaking advantage ofthe unique advantages ofVEs for training, and for working

around the temporary shortfalls in VE technologies.

This report describes research conducted to support the development ofVE systems for

dismounted soldier training. The results ofthe research provide information about the

characteristics needed for effective immersion, learning, and performance in VEs. The results of

this research were briefed to the Office ofthe Secretary ofthe Army for Acquisition, Research,

and Technology (March, 2000), Headquarters, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command

(July, 1999), and the Dismounted BattleSpace BattleLab (November, 1999). Information about a

portion ofthis research has also been included in the proceedings ofthe 1998 IMAGE Society

Conference, the 1998 and 1999 Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education

Systems Conference, and the 2000 Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Conference. An

article based on this report is in press in the journal Presence.

The ARI Simulator Systems Research Unit conducts research to improve the

effectiveness oftraining simulators and simulations. The work described is a part ofARI Work

Package 202a, VERITAS (Virtual Environment Research for Infantry Training and Simulation).

VERITAS is the ARI portion of a Science and Technology Objective, Virtual Environments for

Dismounted Soldier Simulation, Training and Mission Rehearsal, which is being carried out in

conjunction with the U.S. Army Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation Command and the

U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

_ ITA M. SIMUTIS

Technical Director

Zoo;
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Our thanks to:

Chris Kachurak for multifaceted performance throughout this project.

Bob Allen for narration of the train-up videotape.

Chris Ivey for outstanding support during pilot testing.

VI
INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR TRAINING TEAMS IN VIRTUAL

ENVIRONMENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Research Requirement:

The U.S. Army has made a substantial commitment to the use of virtual environment

(VE) technology to create virtual battlefields for combat training and mission rehearsal,

development of military doctrine, and evaluation of weapon system concepts prior to acquisition

decisions. All of these functions would be improved by a better representation of dismounted

soldiers on the virtual battlefield. The U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and

Social Sciences (ART) has established a research program to determine the characteristics of the

VE technologies needed to allow dismounted soldiers to fight on virtual battlefields. In addition

to research needed to support appropriate VE user interfaces, research is needed to determine

appropriate instructional strategies for tapping the unique advantages of VEs for training, and for

mitigating the temporary shortfalls in VE technologies.

Procedure:

Functional requirements were generated for mission tasks and environments that would

support VE team training research. The missions combined task elements of urban search and

rescue, Special Weapons and Tactics Teams (SWAT), and infantry operations inside buildings.

These requirements were used to design and implement the Fully Immersive Team Training

(FITT) research system. The FITT was used in an experiment to examine instructional strategies

for team training in VEs. In that experiment, 94 participants recruited from local colleges served

as two-person teams in conducting search missions. After reading the mission training manual,

teams received guidance on performing the missions either before (Demonstration), during

(Coaching), or after (after-action Replay with critique) practicing the mission tasks, or not at all

(Control group). After practice, each team completed a test mission without guidance.

Findings:

Results indicated that the FTTT adequately creates immersive environments such that participants

can function as teams in learning and performing search, communication, and security

procedures for training research purposes. In particular, the FITT interface for walking through

the simulated environments was learned quickly by the participants. Each of the instructional

strategies could be implemented with the FITT. Both the Control and the Instructional Strategy

groups (Demonstration, Coaching, and Replay) improved with practice on some performance

measures. For the test mission performance measures, differences between the Control group and

the Instructional Strategy groups were not statistically significant, nor were the differences

among the Instructional Strategy groups. Despite the brevity of the VE immersions, about eight

minutes per mission followed by a rest break, simulator sickness was a problem in that about

nine percent of the participants withdrew before completion of the experiment.

vn
Utilization ofFindings:

Technical lessons learned from this experiment were used in the development of a

follow-on system that will be used in research to examine distributed team training in which the

participants are at remote sites. Lessons learned concerning the instructional strategies will be

incorporated in a follow-on effort to develop tactical training for small unit infantry leaders.

The FITT interface for locomotion (walking) through VE should be of value in many VE

applications, including training, architectural design, education, and recreation.

vin
INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR TRAINING TEAMS IN VIRTUAL

ENVIRONMENTS

CONTENTS

Page

Background 1

VE Training Considerations 1

ARI/IST VE Training Research 2

Development of the FITT Functional Requirements 2

FTTT Design 4

Hardware Configuration 4

Individual Combatant Simulator 4

Networking Issues 12

Instructional Strategies for Team Training in Virtual Environments Experiment 14

Instructional Strategies 14

Experimental Procedure and Design 16

Results 19

Discussion 26

Future Research 30

References 31

APPENDIX A. Acronyms A-l

B. Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT) Team Training Manual B-l

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Research Design 17

2. Description Of Mission Procedures And Scoring Criteria 18

3. Test Mission Performance as a Function of Team Composition:

Two Participants Versus a Participant and an Experimenter's Confederate 22

4. Mean Values and Rating Frequencies for Team Process Items 24

5. Mean Values and Percentages for Team Process Ratings 25

IX
CONTENTS (continued)

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Sensor configuration 5

2. Individual combatant simulators 6

3. Hand controller input device 7

4. Controller in use 7

5. Avatars in HAZMAT suits 11

6. Percentage of teams per group that exited within the time limit or at least

attempted to exit 20

7. Percentage of procedures performed correctly and number ofrooms entered

out of total possible for the first and test missions 22
INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR TRAINING TEAMS

IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS

This report describes the design and implementation of the Fully Immersive Team

Training (FITT) research system, and the first experiment conducted with the system. FITT was

developed to support research on the use of distributed Virtual Environments (VEs) for training

dismounted infantry. The research is focused on VE training applications for small units and unit

leaders.

The report is organized as follows: the background section briefly describes the military

training requirement that this research addresses, and outlines our previous research in this area.

Next, an in-depth description of the design and implementation of the FITT research system is

presented. The final major section of the report describes the design, procedure, results and

discussion of the first experiment conducted with the FITT, and implications for future research.

Background

The U.S. Army has made a substantial investment in the use of VEs for training. The

SIMNET program (Alluisi, 1991) and initial efforts with the Close Combat Tactical Trainer

focused primarily on collective training involving combat vehicles such as tanks and infantry

fighting vehicles. There is now a growing effort to develop methods to use immersive VEs to

train soldiers who fight on foot, such as infantry and special operations forces. The expanding

interest in inserting the individual combatant into the virtual battlefield is driven by a number

of factors, including the recognition that members of small dismounted units will face greater

responsibilities and challenges in both combined arms combat and in contingency operations.

In addition to supporting Army training requirements, individual virtual simulation could

support mission planning and rehearsal. The capability to insert the individual combatant into

a virtual combined arms battlefield could also be used in the conceptualization, design, and

testing of new equipment, doctrine, and organization.

VE Training Considerations

The National Research Council's Committee on Virtual Reality Research and

Development has identified numerous ways in which VE has tremendous potential as a training

medium (Durlach & Mavor, 1995). For example, it can be expected that VE-based training will

eventually offer the benefits of traditional simulator-based training such as safety, flexibility,

repeatability, and cost effectiveness. In addition, for some situations VE training may prove more

effective than conventional training in the physical world. VEs offer rich learning possibilities

such as providing multiple viewpoints and various levels of abstraction that cannot be created

with conventional training. However, the Council pointed out that current (as of 1995) VE work

in training was at the research and development stage. Challenges to the use of VE for training

include not only inadequacies of the currently available VE technologies but also a lack of

knowledge concerning basic psychological issues related to training and training transfer. Thus,

maximizing positive transfer from VE training to real-world performance, and avoiding negative

transfer, requires not only improvements in VE technology but also in our knowledge of how to
design and use VE training systems. Johnson, Rickel, Stiles, and Munro (1998) also present

compelling arguments that the development of effective VE training systems must involve more

than considerations of the fidelity of the renderings and accuracy of simulated behaviors.

ARI/IST VE Training Research

Since 1992, the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

(ART), in conjunction with the University of Central Florida's Institute for Simulation and

Training (1ST), has undertaken a program of behavioral science research to investigate the use of

VE technologies to support training of dismounted soldier tasks. The research has been

concerned primarily with three issues: (1) how the characteristics of the individual's interface

with the VE affect task performance and the acquisition of new skills, (2) how skills can best be

trained in VEs and how well they transfer to the real world, and (3) the incidence and severity of

the side effects that can result from immersion in VEs. To date research in this program has

examined VE display and input device requirements for training tasks such as visual tracking,

object manipulation, locomotion, distance estimation, route learning in buildings, building

search, and land navigation. Variables investigated included the type of control device, amount

of practice on the tasks, stereoscopic vs. monoscopic head-mounted displays (HMDs), and type

of display device (monitor, Binocular Omni-Orientation Monitor, or HMD). Under this program,

thirteen experiments involving over 500 human participants have been conducted. This research

is summarized in Knerr et al. (1998).

Development of the FITT Functional Requirements

Previous ARI VE training research involved immersing individuals one at a time.

Developing a system for teams, the FITT system, presented a number of challenges. We

required a system in which two individuals (with potential for expansion to larger teams)

could be immersed simultaneously and engage in meaningful team activities. In addition, we

required a system that could support instructional features and interventions beyond the

simulation of real-world conditions.

For our initial research in using VEs to train teams, we wanted tasks that would require

rapid decision making in complex, dynamic environments; situation awareness; and teamwork.

A challenge was to develop tasks that could be implemented with current VE technology and

represented the critical elements of military tasks, yet were not beyond the grasp of participants

with no previous military training. (For initial experiments with new systems, we recruit our

research participants from local colleges.).

To develop the tasks we reviewed field manuals for infantry combat in built-up areas,

urban search and rescue procedures, and training videotapes for Special Weapons and Tactics

Team procedures. From these, we developed procedures that are generalized versions of tasks

and activities that would be performed during emergencies such as urban search and rescue

missions, hostage rescue, or disasters involving hazardous materials (HAZMAT).

The tasks are organized as a mission in which a two-person team searches the rooms of a

building for canisters containing hazardous gas. The team carries equipment to determine if a
canister contains gas and to deactivate the canisters if necessary. Each team member is

represented in the VE by an avatar. The avatars wear protective clothing and a breathing

apparatus, and carry a tranquilizer dart gun that can temporarily incapacitate the enemy. The

search is complicated by the threat of interference by enemy forces.

Team member #1 is the designated Team Leader. The Team Leader directs team

movement to provide an efficient search while maintaining team security. The leader radios

reports of canister deactivations and encounters with the enemy to an off-site mission

commander. In addition to a tranquilizer dart gun, the Team Leader carries a paint marker used

to mark the doorways ofrooms that have been searched. Team member #2, the HAZMAT

Equipment Specialist, carries a dart gun and a device to detect and deactivate active canisters.

The tools reflect the roles of the team members: a successful mission requires that team members

cooperate with each other.

The missions are situated in a ten-room building. Computer-generated enemy and

innocent bystanders move through hallways and rooms. The presence of both enemy and neutral

forces require rapid shoot/don't shoot decisions. Enemies can be either lightly armed looters or

heavily armed terrorists, requiring the trainee teams to prioritize targets.

Mission instructions specify the amount of air available for each mission. Team members

must remember to periodically check their remaining air supply indicators, and must decide

when to begin exiting the building. This is not an easy decision in that leaving too soon wastes

search time, but underestimating the time needed to exit the building results in mission failure.

Procedures include rules for: the order in which rooms are searched, team formation for

room entry, actions on contact with enemy and innocent bystanders, assigned areas of

responsibility within a room, and how and what to report on the radio network. Successful

performance of some of the procedures requires the team members to coordinate their

movements and actions to within a second of each other.

A training manual was developed to introduce naive participants to the mission

procedures. The 2,300 word, thirteen-page training manual includes a mission overview, learning

objectives, task descriptions with graphics, and ends with a mnemonic to help the

participant/trainee remember the procedures. The manual does not assume that the reader has any

previous training or experience directly relevant to the mission tasks. The Flesch-Kincaid

readability score of 7.4 for the manual falls within the range recommended for manuals for the

armed services (MIL-M-38784B, 1983). The training manual for the Team Leader is at

Appendix B. (The actual manuals presented to the participants were printed in color.) A paper

and pencil knowledge test was developed to measure each participant's mastery of the manual.

The two-person FETT team meets the defining characteristics of teams listed by Salas,

Dickinson, Converse, and Tannenbaum (1992) in their review of team training research: there

is some organizational structure of the team members; each individual team member has

specific tasks or functions; and there is a common goal, mission, or objective.
FITT Design

FITT incorporates a number of modular components to provide a flexible framework for

developing networked team training applications. The primary components ofthis system are the

individual combatant simulator (ICS), a computer-generated entity server (CGES), a mission

controller/experimenter station, an audio system to simulate radio communication between the

participants, and a system for data collection and mission playback.

Hardware Configuration

FITT consists of the following hardware components:

ICS#1:

• 8 Processor / 3 Pipe Silicon Graphics Onyx RE2 (Team Leader and CGES)

• 6 Tracker Ascension MotionStar

• Virtual Research VR4 Head Mounted Display

ICS #2:

• 4 Processor / 1 Pipe Silicon Graphics Onyx RE2 (Specialist)

• 6 Tracker Ascension Flock ofBirds

• Virtual Research VR4 Head Mounted Display

Silicon Graphics Indigo2 High Impact (Stealth)

Silicon Graphics Indy (Data Collection)

Dell Pentium 90 (Audio Capture)

Dell 486 (Startup Browser)

Misc. handheld input devices

Misc. video equipment for observing player views and videotaping after action critiques.

This hardware list is used for the current two player configuration of FITT. The configuration is

easily scalable, and extra ICSs could be added, as necessary, to support more players in the VE.

Note that the extra processing power ofthe 8 processor Onyx allows it to run the CGES

component, in addition to its duties as an ICS.

Individual Combatant Simulator

The ICS provides a link between the participant and the networked VE. This simulator

provides a view into the shared virtual world via an image generator and a viewpoint-tracked

display device. The ICS also provides a means for interacting directly with the virtual world

through a variety of Input/Output devices that can be selected according to their applicability to

the mission scenario. Finally, it is the role of the ICS to translate the real-world gestures and

movements of the participant into appropriate avatar responses.
Sensor Configuration

Each team member is suited with six position sensors (Figure 1) used to determine body

position, view, and locomotion. As can been seen in Figure 2, the FITT system can

accommodate a wide range in participant height and morphology. The sensor mounted on the

HMD determines gaze direction. Body direction is measured by the position of a sensor mounted

on a lightweight wooden backpack worn by each participant. This sensor determines which

direction the participant's torso is facing, and which direction he or she will walk when moving

forward. The back pack also acts as a cable guide for the wires that run to the sensors.

Head Sensor

Back/Body Sensor

Elbow Sensor

Hand Sensor

Ankle Sensors

Left & Right

Figure 1. Sensor configuration.

Locomotion method. The ankle trackers are used for locomotion through the VE. Stride

length is determined by the amount of time the angle sensor is held above a defined height.

Slowly marching in place, raising and lowering the feet, provides a smooth gait through the VE.

The software object responsible for ambulating the participant watches the step height by

comparing the height of the ankle trackers relative to the base of the ICS. When the tracker

crosses a software-defined threshold, a step is initiated and the height of the step is translated

into pitch rotations for the hip and knee joints, allowing the avatar to raise and lower its legs as

the player walks. The locomotion model also allows discrete backward steps.

Arm articulation. The right arm of each player is tracked in order to articulate the arm of

the virtual avatar. This requires two sensors working in conjunction with the back sensor. The

position of the player's shoulder joint is determined by offset from the back tracker. This

phantom shoulder position is used with a sensor strapped to the elbow to derive a vector for the
upper arm. An additional sensor mounted on the input device and held within the hand of the

player provides a way of deriving the vector for the lower arm position.

Figure 2. Individual combatant simulators.

Despite the existence of methods for animating avatar arm movement using only a back

sensor and a hand (Tolani, Deepak, & Badler, 1996), the FITT development team chose the

expense of an extra sensor for the finer model granularity offered. In addition, a fully rotational

model of the upper and lower arm provides a mechanism to implement complex hand and arm

signals.

Manual control device. The initial objective of the design team was to provide a manual

controller device that approximated the mass and size or "heft" of an actual pistol or comparable

item of equipment. Informal pilot testing quickly revealed that after only a few minutes into a

mission, the weight of the controller became distracting. A very light controller was eventually

settled upon: the palm grip of a Gravis Blackhawk joystick (Figures 3 & 4). The controller

thumb switch advances/cycles through an array of configurable hand held items, beginning with

an empty hand, then the sidearm, and then through the tools available to the team member.

(Team Leaders were equipped with paint markers, and Equipment Specialists were outfitted with

gas canister detector/deactivators.) The index finger is held over the 'trigger'.
^£3P?P?$

Figure 3. Hand controller input device. Figure 4. Controller in use.

Computer-generated Entity Server

The CGES provides support for all of the simulated entities in the VE. Environmental

attributes that can be expressed as a Boolean state variable (such as doors left open or closed, or

lights turned on or off) can be rapidly configured and implemented in FITT. For example, gas

canisters encountered in the VE can be found in one of two states: active or "dud". In addition to

serving simple two-state environmental elements, CGES can also be used to serve more

sophisticated entities such as computer-generated enemies, referred to as Opposing Forces

(OPFOR). Although configuration of these types of dynamic elements is not as quickly

implemented as Boolean elements, (they generally require the development of custom behavior

code) allowances have been made for a broad range of expression on the part of the mission

designer. The OPFOR can be programmed with various levels of hostility and ability.

Configurable parameters for OPFOR include span of peripheral vision, response time for

orienting toward and firing at a participant after sighting a mission participant, sentry path, and

accuracy with a weapon. For example, OPFOR can vary from an armed terrorist with pinpoint

firing accuracy and a high degree of visual acuity, to a lightly armed looter, to an unarmed

innocent bystander who should not be fired at when sighted. The OPFOR can also be set to stand

in place and guard an area, or can be given a sentry path to follow and search for intruders (that

is, the participants/trainees). Each OPFOR reacts to being shot by the players' tranquilizer pistols

by slumping to the ground, and not moving for the remainder of the simulation.
Mission Commander/Experimenter Station

The MIT system mission commander\experimenter station was developed with features

to allow a single individual to serve as the mission commander and as an experimenter. As

commander, appropriate communications are exchanged with the participant team members over

the simulated radio network. The station also supports experimenter tasks such as scoring team

performance and instructional interventions such as coaching. A single keystroke toggles the

display between a top-down view of the entire building that the team is searching and a zoomedin close-up view centered over the team leader. To allow the commander to discern more easily

which equipment is in use at a given time, the equipment in use by each team member is visually

represented much larger than scale relative to the HAZMAT-suited avatars. Along with the

graphical display of the players' positions in the VE, statistics are displayed which quantify the

actions of the participants and assist the experimenter in determining the efficiency of the team

as they move through their required tasks. For example, the display includes the number of times

each participant: has been engaged by enemy fire during a mission, has changed equipment, and

has collided with something in the VE.

Audio system

Audio communication is an essential ingredient of F1TT. The audio for each player

integrates environmental sounds such as gun shots, door openings and closings, and collision

sounds, as well as communication with the other two members of the team. Because the ICSs are

in separate rooms, the participants can speak to each other during the mission only over a

simulated radio net. This avoids the problem that ifthe ICSs were in the same room the direction

of voice would not change appropriately as the participants' avatars changed their relative

positions to each other. Microphones attached to the HMDs at the Leader and Specialist

positions feed their signals to the master mixing console, where the Commander's microphone

signal is included in the mix. The Commander can talk with each ofthe other team members

separately ifthe need arises. The signal from the master mixer is then sent back to each player

where a small mixer integrates it with environmental sounds generated from audio files on the

ICS machines. These final signal mixes are then delivered to the headsets ofthe HMDs.

Audio Capture and playback is performed by a separate machine, a Dell Optiplex 560 PC

running Windows 95. The PC's sound hardware (a Sound Blaster AWE64) is connected to an

intercom system that allows both players and the experimenter to talk to each other as if

communicating via radio. The PC is also attached via serial cable to both the SGI Onyx running

the playback system, and the SGI Indy running the data capture program. During data capture,

the PC receives its recording commands from the Indy. The Indy first instructs the PC to ready

itself for audio capture and informs it of the current trial's unique ID number. Next, it instructs

the PC to begin audio capture. At this point the PC begins "listening" on its audio input port for

audio communication. When the audio level rises above a preset threshold, the PC saves the

current time (from its internal multimedia timer) and begins recording audio into a .wav file. The

threshold code acts as a software voice activated circuit, and reduces the size of the .wav files

when no communication is occurring. After the audio level falls below the threshold for a fixed

amount of time, recording stops. The PC calculates the length of the audio clip and saves the

ending time of the clip. It then returns to "listening" mode. Finally, the SGI Indy informs the PC
when to stop recording audio. All audio clips with their associated time stamps are then saved

into a file in the same directory as the .wav files. This allows them to be recalled later by the

playback system.

Data Capture and Playback System

During any mission, the data collection system records all of the network traffic. This

recording can be used to replay events as they unfolded during a particular mission, or it may be

analyzed to produce a numerical summary for performance evaluation. Along with recording the

network traffic, the data collection system also records all of the voice communications among

the participants in the exercise. When the data stream is played back, the audio of those

communications is also played to provide synchronized audio and visual replay of the mission.

Data recording is accomplished by capturing the Protocol Data Unit (PDU) traffic from

all participating machines (both player machines and the CGES server) into a terse binary file.

The data capture program runs on an SGI Indy workstation attached to the network. The start of

data recording is signaled by a Start/Resume PDU, and the end is signaled by a Stop/Freeze

PDU. These are sent by the experimenter via the Stealth machine's keyboard, to all machines at

the beginning of the experimental trial. All PDUs are time stamped by the sending machine and

all machines are time slaved to one designated master time server during each experimental run.

This assures that all data can be reconstructed in the proper sequence during playback.

The Playback system is designed to allow experimenters and participants to view a

complete audio/visual computer-generated reenactment of an experimental trial (mission).

Features of this system include:

• The ability to view any instant ofthe experiment from any viewpoint

• The ability to advance or rewind the reenactment at any desired rate of speed

• The accurate representation of environment changes (such as doors opening and paint marks

on walls) both during normal playback and fast/slow motion

• The recreation of audio cues ( door sounds for example) and player audio communications

synchronized to the visual playback

The Playback system runs on either of the SGI Onyx RealityEngine2 machines used as

ICS stations during the mission. The software is built from the same libraries used to develop the

experiment. In effect, it acts as a stealth station with a variable viewpoint, but reads PDUs out of

a data capture file rather than fresh off the network. In addition, the same PC used to record the

participants' audio communication is used to play back this audio, allowing the experimenters

and participants to both hear, as well as see, how the mission progressed. The control panel for

the viewer has familiar VCR-style controls allowing play, stop, rewind, and fast-forward at the

click of a mouse. There is also a shuttle dial that allows for variable speed playback, both slower

and faster than normal. The panel provides a real-time clock and a PDU counter to indicate

where in the recorded mission the playback system is currently pointing.
The playback system begins by first reading in the requested PDU file, sorting the PDUs

chronologically (by their saved time stamp), and pre-loading the appropriate body and

environment models. It then establishes communications with the audio playback PC, instructing

it to prepare to play the appropriate trial's audio data. When the play button is pressed on the

Playback control panel, the PC is sent a "play" command with the current time index (in

milliseconds). The PC then computes which .wav file to play based on this time index. If the

time happens to fall in between two .wav files in its list, it waits until the correct time to play. If

the time is somewhere within a .wav file, it begins playback from an appropriate offset into the

file. Audio is only played while the system is in real-time playback mode; therefore, if any

control other than "play" is selected on the control panel, the audio PC is instructed by the SGI to

stop playback.

The simulation time is computed by the SGI running the visual portion of the playback

system. If the playback system is in "play" mode, the system's real-time clock is used to update

the simulation time each frame. This provides an accurate representation of the passage of time.

If it is in a fast-wind or slow-motion mode, the time is arbitrarily incremented or decremented.

Each frame, the SGI reads all PDUs from the file that happened prior to (or if rewinding,

subsequent to) the current simulation time. As each PDU is read, the appropriate entities are

updated, the appropriate weapons fired, and the appropriate doors opened or closed. After all

necessary PDUs are processed, the next frame is drawn and the cycle repeated. Originally, a

method was to be implemented that would continuously synchronize the graphics data to the

audio, because the audio capture PC is not time slaved to the primary simulation machines.

Preliminary testing demonstrated that this was not necessary, however, as both the PC's and the

SGI's internal clocks were independently accurate enough to control the timing of their

respective playbacks. That is, no discrepancy in the audio and visual data was perceived over the

length of any trial's playback.

Avatars

FITT provides a means for representing participants within the shared virtual world as

avatars. As shown in Figure 5, the avatar of each team member depicts a person in HAZMAT

gear: a bulky chemical protective suit with a helmet containing breathing apparatus. Thus, the

limitations of the FITT to represent locomotion, vision, audition, and haptic factors enhance,

rather than detract from, the sense of presence. For example, the participants are told that the

HAZMAT suit and body armor provide protection but limit speed of movement to walking and

prevent running, crawling, orjumping.

Loftin (1998) described a team training VE for which high fidelity human models were

developed to serve as avatars for each of the actual participants in VE training. Because our

research involves hundreds of different participants it is not practical to develop a model for

each individual participant. Therefore, an additional advantage to using the HAZMAT suited

avatars is that they do not depict body morphology, gender, or ethnicity.

The 3D-avatar model incorporates 45 degree of freedom beads allowing for realistic

deflection of limbs and torso. Setting the proper rotation angles for these degree of freedom

beads is the responsibility of the ICS.

10
Figure 5. Avatars in HAZMAT suits.

Virtual Environments

The basic floor plan for the search mission consists of 10 rooms positioned along a

hallway containing one ninety degree turn. Six of these floor plans were developed. Each

contains the same square footage to be searched but they differ in the directions in which

hallways branch and the locations of the rooms. Thus, across different missions the search task is

of equivalent difficulty but the layout of the building can not be memorized. A seventh floor plan

has also been created which involves a multistory structure and presents a much more

challenging search task.

Two separate VEs were designed to provide practice in walking in a VE and to practice

using the manual control device to select and use equipment. The first consists of a large room

and a connecting series of corridors. The large room contains a pattern at eye-height on which

the participant can focus as a reference while adjusting the HMD. The corridors, designed after

the Virtual Environment Performance Assessment Battery (VEPAB) hallways task (Lampton, et

11
al. 1994), provide practice walking under more demanding conditions and allow speed and

accuracy (collisions) measures for each participant. The second VE contains examples ofthe

various types of equipment and friendlies, enemies, and neutrals that can be encountered during

the missions. In this VE the participants separately practice using the pistol and the equipment

unique to their role in the team.

Networking Issues

The FITT is a networked simulation environment that uses the Distributed Interactive

Simulation (DIS) protocol to pass messages back and forth. A subset of DIS protocol version

2.0.4 has been implemented for this project. Fully articulated human figures are not explicitly

supported by the DIS protocol. For Fill, body and limb position are transmitted via articulated

parts structures attached to the Entity State PDU. The following DIS PDUs are used during the

application:

Entity State PDU This is the primary PDU used for the player avatars and the computergenerated opposition forces. The articulated parts array is used to broadcast the position and

posture of the avatar. A total of 47 articulated part parameters are available for modification

during the simulation.

Fire PDU - Detonate PDU These two PDUs are used for the paint marker tool and the

Gas Cylinder de-activator tool, as well as for the tranquilizer dart pistols available to team

members.

Action Request PDU Door opening and closing events are broadcast using these PDUs.

Start PDU - Stop PDU Used by the menu software for starting and stopping the

simulation.

Collision PDU Used by the Data capture hardware to log collisions for playback.

One important aspect ofthe Fill' software is that the DIS PDU traffic is handled by an

Entity Services application that runs as its own process on each network machine. All message

queuing and dead reckoning for all PDUs are encapsulated within this Entity Service running on

the host machine. Applications wishing to use the Entity Service log on as a client.

A final word about our choice of the Entity State PDU as the primary avatar state vehicle:

at the start of this experiment, an evaluation of the human figure problem was made. The

graphical representation ofthe human figure, in contrast to a vehicle, requires a relatively large

number of articulated parts. For example, the current system supports fourteen different joints of

the human body each with three rotations. In general, there are two methods that can be used for

transmitting human figures within DIS. An Entity State PDU with all the articulated parts can be

sent, or a Data PDU can be used to transmit the human articulated parts. Technically, the DIS

standard does not support articulated parts of human figure in its articulated parts enumeration

(the enumeration focuses more on the parts of vehicles such as a turret). However, we chose to

use Entity State PDUs because it was felt that articulated part information really should go along

12
with all the other entity information even if the DIS standard did not include human figures in its

enumerations (some arbitrary articulated part types were used).

Simulation Startup from Browser

FITT uses six computers, all of which have their own unique startup sequences

depending on which options the user wishes to run. To deal with experiment startup

complications, we developed a multi-layered menu program in Java to select the various options

available and launch the simulation from one terminal.

The menu allows the user to control any part of the simulation from one terminal. The

menu has options to place the machines into or take them out of Multi Channel Option (MCO)

mode (allows for stereo view). It can be used to set up information for data capture, start/stop a

simulation, process captured data, play back a previously run simulation, and email the collected

data. It can also bring the systems off the network as a restricted subnet for maintaining a distinct

and stable experimental environment.

The menu program is a client/server combination. The server is a Java application that

can be run on any one of the computers used for the simulation. The server receives commands

and options from the client interface. Then, depending on the options, the server uses the Java

System.exec() method to remotely start up the parameters of the simulation needed on the

various machines. After executing the commands, the server updates the state information of the

client.

Originally, the client interface was designed as an applet that would run through an

internet browser. It was changed to an application to get around the security restrictions imposed

by applets and browsers. Specifically, the browser would not allow an applet to communicate

with an application unless the application was running on the same host from which the applet

was loaded. Thus, our options were to either set up the machine running the application as a web

server, or to write the client as an application as well.

Due to the reboot process incurred while taking the machines on and off the lab's general

development network, the menu needed to be robust. The client and server are both able to

survive if the other is killed. Ifthe client is killed, the server simply waits for a new client to

connect and then updates the new client with the current state of the simulation. If the server is

killed (due to system reboot while taking the simulation off the network), the client will display a

"Waiting for server message" and attempt to reconnect to the server. Once the server is running

again, it will connect to the machines involved, determine the current state of the simulation, and

then wait for the client to reconnect.

Summary of FITT development and Implementation

In implementing FITT, 1ST built upon its previous VE development efforts by

incorporating a networked virtual environment system, a sophisticated action-after critique

system, and a new Java-based menu system. The networked system built upon previous work by

1ST (for the U.S. Army Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM) under

13
the Dynamic Terrain project) by modifying existing DIS protocols to support human avatars and

environment elements (for example, operable doors and leaking canisters). The action-after

critique system captures all environment network traffic and audio communication, and provides

a playback mechanism, which can be used for reviewing the mission with the participants. The

new Java-based menu system replaced the old text-based menu system used by previous

experiments and provided necessary enhancement due to the quantity of machines necessary to

support the experiment during run-time. Overall, the FETT system provides a robust and flexible

networked virtual environment system using an object-oriented design running on multiple

workstations.

Instructional Strategies for Team Training in Virtual Environments Experiment

For our first experiment looking at team training in VE we sought to implement

straightforward (simple) implementations of tradition instructional strategies involving when to

give guidance to the trainees. These were: guidance given either before (demonstration), during

(coaching), or after (replay) the first practice mission, or not at all (control group). Thus, the

instructional strategies differ in when guidance is given. We did not expect that any particular

strategy would be significantly superior to the others, but rather wished to conduct an

exploratory comparison of their effectiveness.

Instructional Strategies

Demonstration

Demonstrations provide an observer with information about the required behaviors,

actions, or strategies associated with a task. We believe that the unique capabilities of VE can

enhance what has already proven to be an effective instructional strategy.

In the demonstration group, the team members watched a replay of a mission conducted

by an "expert" team highly practiced with the tasks. The replay is of the movement of the

avatars, viewed from above and centered on the team leader, as they correctly perform the

mission tasks. Thus, the trainees see the avatars in proper formation, and hear examples of

appropriate radio communications, before they attempt the practice and test missions. The

demonstration provides an example of good team coordination and a feel for the tempo

appropriate for the individual tasks and the overall mission.

The demonstration mission was produced by having an experienced team perform a

mission, and videotaping a playback ofthat mission. (Prior experience was based on performing

missions to help test the system and several missions conducted specifically to rehearse for the

demonstration mission.) During the playback, the view was zoomed in and out. For example,

when the team assumed the "stack" formation the view was zoomed in to give a better view of

the proper formation. During engagements with the enemy, the view was zoomed in and out so

that both the team and Opposing Forces were shown. The demonstration team featured three

easily distinguished voices: mature man (Team Leader) youthful man (Equipment Specialist),

mature woman (Mission Commander). There was no narration additional to communication that

14
occurred as part of the mission.

Coaching

Coaching involves knowing what to say, and when to say it, to the trainees. In the

coaching condition, the participants received guidance from the mission commander while they

attempted the missions. Coaching provided immediate feedback and prevented the participants

from practicing procedures incorrectly. The frequency of coaching was expected to naturally

"fade" as the participants required less guidance as they gained experience. A potential problem

with coaching is that it may rapidly bring a team to a high level of performance, but may also

lead to problems when the coaching "crutch" is not available during the test mission.

Replay (with critique)

After performing a mission, the participants watched a replay of that mission. During the

replay, the mission commander pointed out the strengths and weaknesses of the mission. This

approach is similar to the after-action review (AAR). The AAR is the Army's approved method

for providing feedback to trainees as part of their performance oriented training (Meliza, 1996).

The AAR is a professional discussion conducted after training exercises to maximize and

reinforce learning by involving the participants in the training diagnostic process. An effective

AAR is one in which performance problems are identified, defined, and solved in such a manner

that allows the trainees to learn from their performance. The main goal isto identify strengths

and weaknesses while focusing on problem solving to allow trainees to determine their level of

skill and decide what they need to do to improve their performance. Through participation in an

AAR, trainees get to identify the tasks accomplished and the tasks requiring improvement.

Among the ways that our after-action critique conducted in this experiment differed from

a standard Army AAR was that the replay was not paused for comments. In addition, discussion

by the participants was greatly limited.

In both the coaching and replay conditions, the experimenter had a checklist to aid in

scoring team performance and providing consistent feedback. The checklist items were those

included in the mission scoring criteria (Table 2).

No external feedback (control group)

This group received no feedback other than that intrinsic to performing the missions, and

provided a baseline with which to compare the performance of the instructional strategy groups.

In some experiments the control group represents a "no training" condition to determine chance

performance. This is not the case in our design. The control group teams studied the team

mission training manual as did the instructional strategy groups, and completed two practice

missions before conducting a third test mission. *e>

Note that total training time was held constant across groups. The control group teams,

therefore, performed one more practice mission than the demonstration and replay teams. The

demonstration and replay teams watched a mission replay in place of a second practice mission.

15
Experimental Procedure and Design

Ninety-four participants were recruited from local colleges and scheduled two at a time.

Participants had the option of receiving extra credit points from their instructors or seven dollars

for each hour of participation. If one of the scheduled two participants did not show up, then an

experimenter's confederate served as the second team member. Participants read and signed a

consent form, then completed background information and baseline (pre-immersion) Simulator

Sickness Questionnaires (SSQ). (See Kennedy, Lane, Lilienthal, Berbaum, and Hettinger (1992)

for a comprehensive description of the SSQ.) Next, they watched a videotape showing how to

walk and use equipment in the VE. A coin flip determined who would be the Team Leader. (For

teams with an experimental confederate, the participant was always designated the Team Leader.

A list of rules defined the limits on the ways the confederate could help the leader. Basically, the

confederate performed the Equipment Specialist duties very efficiently, but was instructed not to

help the leader with navigating the building, performing leader procedures, or monitoring or

dealing with the time limit.)

Two different VEs provided familiarization with using the FITT system. The first VE

provided practice walking in VEs. After a break, a second VE allowed the participant to practice

using equipment, more demanding walking tasks, and to recognize a team mate, types of enemy,

and innocent bystanders. Thus, before participants conducted a mission as a team, they had each

practiced individually in moving through VEs, aiming and firing the pistol, and operating the

equipment unique to their assigned role.

Next, the participants read the mission training manual. A paper and pencil knowledge

test based on the mission procedures was then administered. The participants were told which, if

any, items they missed and the correct responses.

Up to this point, all participants received the same treatment. They were then assigned to

one of the four conditions shown in Table 1.

For purposes of illustration of the training phase we consider the control group first. The

teams in this group conducted three missions, with a rest break between missions. Each of these

missions was different but of equivalent difficulty as defined by the number of canisters and

OPFOR to be dealt with. The mission scores for the control group allow us to plot change in

performance as a function of practice without external feedback or guidance. Performance on the

third mission can be compared with the test mission of the other instructional strategy groups.

The demonstration group watched a replay of a mission performed by a team highly

familiar and practiced with the mission tasks. The demonstration was given in place of one

practice mission. After watching the demonstration, the team then had a practice mission session,

and then the test mission session. In a similar manner, in place of a second practice mission

session, the replay group teams watched a replay of their own performance of the first practice

mission. In the coaching condition, the commander/experimenter provided prompts or

suggestions as the team conducted the mission.

16
Table 1.

Research Design

Group

Demonstration

Coaching

Replay

Control

Training Phase

(Mission # 1) (Mission # 2)

Test

(Mission # 3)

Watch Demonstration Practice

Practice with Coaching Practice with Coaching

Practice Critique During Replay

Practice Practice

Test

Test

Test

Test

The demonstration and each mission exercise, replay, and test were eight minutes in

duration. This time limit made sure that all groups had the same total training time. Two different

scenarios were counterbalanced across the first and third missions.The scenarios differed in the

layout of the rooms within the building and the placement of canisters and OPFOR.

After each mission, the participants completed another SSQ. After the last mission,

participants were told the purpose of the experiment and given the opportunity to ask questions.

Total time was two hours.

Performance Measures

The criteria for measuring team performance of the mission procedures are presented in

Table 2. Data streams from each mission were replayed and recorded on videotape. Raters used

checklists to score each of the procedures, pausing or replaying mission segments when

necessary to aid scoring.

17
Table 2

Description of Mission Procedures and Scoring Criteria

Procedure Description (scoring criteria)

Room search order Is the right turn rule observed by both team members in the search of

building's rooms?

Proper entry formation

and coordination

Do team members align themselves properly with the doorway, and

recite "stack/ready/go" protocol correctly?

Room entry Does the team leader move far enough into the room to allow

equipment specialist to pass through the doorway?

Effectiveness of search Does team penetrate the room adequately to see around all

obscuring furniture, etc; were any canisters missed?

Room exit Does team exit the room together, with team leader in front?

Room marking Does team leader use paint gun to mark the outside ofthe room

(above the doorway)that wasjust searched?

Pistol in hand Does the equipment specialist have pistol selected when leaving

room?

"Contact" announced Do team members clearly announce "contact" upon encountering

enemy?

Appropriate target,

number of shots, and

clear line of fire

Do team members incapacitate enemy (and not innocent bystanders;

do they fire a minimum of tranquilizer darts, and; do they move

around each other (and other obstructions) to obtain a clear line of

fire?

Reports contact Does team leader report to the commander that contact with enemy

has occurred?

Correct call sign; proper

format

In reporting the above information, does the team leader initiate and

carry out commo in accordance with protocols in the training

manual?

Correct enemy type and

number

In reporting to the commander, does the team leader properly

identify the enemy type (looter or terrorist) and number?

Hazardous gas canisters Does the equipment specialist check canister(s), if present; does the

equipment specialist then inform the team leader of the canister's

original and current status (e.g., "active and now deactivated;" or

"dud")?

Reporting of hazardous

gas canisters

Does the team leader properly describe to the commander both the

number and status of the canisters encountered, and follow correct

call sign and format protocols?

18
Results

This section begins with background information on the research participants. Next,

performance measures are presented. There are two categories of performance measures. The

first consists of those measures recorded once per mission. (For example, did the team exit the

building within the time limit?) The second category consists of measures taken several times per

mission, such as proper formation for entering a room and actions on encountering enemy.

Following the logic of the experimental design, performance on the last mission is the primary

focus of the summaries of both categories of performance measures. Performance on the practice

missions is also described. Performance by teams with two participants is compared with that of

teams with a confederate. Frequency and severity of the occurrence of simulator sickness are

discussed briefly. Participants' ratings of several characteristics and dimensions of teamwork are

presented and ratings of aspects of presence, the sense of being immersed in the VE, are

summarized.

Participant background information

Ninety-four participants were involved in this experiment. Fifty-two (55%) were women

and 42 (45%) were men. Their age ranged from 17 to 54 with an average of 21. Nine of them

withdrew because of simulator sickness. Three teammates of those simulator sickness

withdrawals could not be accommodated with teammates and are not included in the participant

count for determining the number and percentage of participants who withdrew because of

simulator sickness. Although they did not withdraw, they also, through no fault oftheir own, did

not complete the experiment. Obviously, performance data are not available for those teams that

did not complete the experiment. In addition, for some of the teams (involving ten participants)

that did complete the experiment, data capture and storage problems resulted in loss of some

performance data. Therefore, the number of participants varies, as indicated, across the various

analyses.

The remaining 81 participants formed 49 teams, 26 "real" teams in which both members

were experimental subjects and 23 confederate teams in which the confederate performed the

role of Equipment Specialist. The percentage ofreal teams in the Control, Demonstration,

Coaching, and Replay groups were 55%, 50%, 67% and 43%, respectively.

Performance data

Exiting the building within the time limit. Figure 6 presents the percentage of teams per

group that exited within the time limit or at least attempted to exit. The number of teams with

usable data per condition were: control =11, demonstration = 12, coaching = 12, and replay =

14. Equivalent procedures were used for the first mission for the replay and control groups,

therefore data for those groups were combined as "baseline". Baseline represents the

performance on the first mission without a prior demonstration or coaching during the mission.

19
E3 Exited in time M Attempted to exit

Baseline

Mission 1

Control Demo Coach Replay

Test Mission

Figure 6. Percentage of teams per group that exited within the time limit or at least attempted to

exit. Baseline represents the first mission for the control group and replay group combined.

Because of the small number of teams, we used the odds ratio approach for comparing

group performance. The ratio, calculated by dividing the odds of one event by another, provides

results in the form of a direct comparison between variables (e.g., "a team in the demonstration

group is x times as likely to successfully exit as is a team in the control group"). Advantages of

the odds ratio include its being unaffected by sample size or by unequal row or column totals

(Howell, 1997). Stated in terms of an odds ratio, teams from all groups combined were about

13.8 times more likely to exit in time during the test mission than the baseline teams were in the

first practice mission (chi-square (1, N = 74) = 16.27, p_ < .001). Thus the training sessions

improved performance on this performance measure.

The question of whether teams improve with practice alone was addressed by comparing

the number of control group teams that successfully exited during the first mission with the

number that exited during the test mission. Following the analysis described by Siegel (1956) for

related samples (control team is used as its own control) and a small (less than 5 ) frequency for

one cell of the contingency table, a binomial test yielded p = .016.

Thus the performance of both control and instructional strategy teams improved from the

first to the third mission. An instructional strategy team was about 2.7 times more likely to exit

in time than was a control-group team. However, following the analysis described by Siegel

(1956) for independent samples and a small frequency for one cell of the contingency table, a

Fisher exact probability test yielded p_ = . 14 for the same or a stronger association. Thus the

apparently superior performance ofthe instructional strategy teams relative to control group

teams was not statistically significant.

20
During data collection, we noticed that some teams that failed to exit in time attempted to

exit but failed, whereas others did not even try to exit. Teams could be so caught up in the

mission, particularly during encounters with enemy, that they forgot to monitor their air gauges.

For teams that attempted to exit but failed; some waited until too late to start back, some started

back with enough time but then decided "Maybe we have time to search one more room." Teams

could also become lost in attempting to retrace their paths. It was generally very clear when a

team decided to exit in that usually the Team Leader, but occasionally the Equipment Specialist,

would express something to the effect that "We need to leave now."

Figure 6 presents the percentages of teams who at least attempted to exit. All teams

combined on the third mission were 3.06 times more likely to attempt to exit than were baseline

teams (chi-square (1, N=74) = 14.55 , p_ <.001. Looking at the effect of practice alone, the control

group teams were about 3.8 times as likely to attempt to exit during the test mission than the

baseline teams during their first mission. A binomial test comparing the number of control group

teams that attempted to exit during the first mission with the number that attempted to exit during

the test mission yielded a significant p = .016.

For the test mission, an instructional strategy group team was 3.12 times more likely to

attempt to exit than a control group team. However, this difference was not statistically

significant (chi-square (1, N = 49) = 1.5, p_ = .22).

Procedural tasks

A single composite score was generated for each mission indicating the percentage of

correctly executed tasks based on the total number of appropriate opportunities to perform the

tasks. Percentage of procedures performed correctly, and the number of rooms entered, out of

total possible for the first and test missions are shown in Figure 7. (For the percentage of

procedures performed correctly, the number of teams with usable data per condition were:

control = 7, demonstration = 9, coaching =11, and replay = 14.) In a general sense, the

percentage score represents the accuracy with which the teams perform in contrast to the number

of rooms searched which represents the speed of the building search. For both of these measures

Analyses of Variance for a practice effect (control group mission 1 versus mission 3) and

instructional strategy effect (test mission, the 3 strategies versus control) were not statistically

significant.

Examination of the scores of individual teams indicated a wide range in performance.

The highest percentage of procedures score for the last mission was 97. That indicates for

practically every room entered and searched, and every encounter with OPFOR and canisters,

that team correctly performed all of the tasks listed in Table 2. That team completed searching

seven rooms and returned to the designated area with 13 seconds left on the countdown timer.

The lowest score was 34. That team entered 8 rooms, correctly executed only 34 percent of the

tasks, and did not attempt to exit within the time limit.

21
El Procedures performed correctly Rooms entered

e

a

Eo

o

et

3

8

O

Baseline

Mission 1

Control Demo Coach Replay

Test Mission

Figure 7. Percentage of procedures performed correctly and number of rooms entered out of

total possible for the first and test missions. Baseline represents the first mission for the control

group and replay group combined.

Performance as a function of team composition

Table 3 presents a comparison of performance of teams made up of two recruited

participants with that of teams composed of a participant serving as the team leader and an

experimenter's confederate as the equipment specialist. For number ofrooms searched and

percent of correct procedures, t-tests for independent samples did not approach statistical

significance.

Table 3

Test Mission Performance as a Function of Team Composition: Two Participants versus a

Participant and an Experimenter's Confederate

Performance Measure Equipment Specialist

Participant Confederate

% exited in time 58 (26) 52 (23)

% attempted to exit 69 (26) 78 (23)

Mean number of rooms searched 8.3 (26) 8.2 (23)

Mean percent correct procedures 78 (20) 78 (21)

Note: The total number of teams is shown in parentheses.

22
Videotapes of 23 test missions conducted by teams including a confederate were

reviewed to determine if the confederate followed the directions for role playing. The

confederate was instructed to serve efficiently as the Equipment Specialist but to provide no

information, beyond what was called for in the training manual, to influence the performance of

the Team Leader. In four of the 23 missions the confederate was judged to be "too helpful".

Simulator Sickness

About 9% of the participants withdrew from the experiment because of simulator

sickness. All of the participants who withdrew because of simulator sickness were women.

Reason and Brand (1975) suggest that women tend to be more susceptible to motion sickness

than men. Given that each mission was relatively brief, only about eight minutes in the HMD at a

time, and rest breaks were given between missions, the attrition rate indicates that simulator

sickness is still a challenge that must be considered in developing practical training applications

using immersive VEs.

Fatigue was the most frequently reported symptom on the pre-immersion SSQ. For all

five post-immersion SSQs, eyestrain was the most frequently reported symptom. Only on the

SSQ administered after the last mission were any symptoms rated as severe: dizzy eyes open and

stomach awareness. The last mission also had the greatest variety of symptoms reported with

each of the 16 symptoms reported by at least two participants.

For those participants who completed the experiment, the mean Total Severity score for

the SSQ administered after the test mission was 9 and the standard deviation was 17. For those

who withdrew, the mean was 38 and the standard deviation was 20 for the SSQ administered

after the last mission they attempted. Addition information on simulator sickness data from this

experiment is presented in Lampton, Rodriguez, and Cotton (2000).

Participant Ratings of Team Processes

Because there was not enough time to administer lengthy questionnaires during the

experimental session, we asked participants to take home the questionnaires and return them

within one week. The questionnaires addressed team processes and "presence" the extent to

which participants feel immersed in the VE. This take home approach was only attempted for

about the last third of the data collection effort. Forty-two of the participants were given a set of

questionnaires to take with them and return them within one week. Forty did so.

Two instruments were used to measure participants' ratings of team processes and

satisfaction. The first questionnaire, adapted from Harvey and Drolet, (1994), consisted of a list

of 14 team characteristics: cooperation, communication, mutual support, mutual respect,

atmosphere, cohesion, pride, trust, leadership, participation, decision making, goals and roles,

problem solving, and climate. Participants rated each characteristic with a scale ranging from

"none" to "excellent". Table 4 presents the mean value and rating frequencies for each item. The

table lists the items in descending order of the mean values. Note that most of the ratings are

favorable. Two participants indicated that the process of "pride" was not applicable to their team

membership.

23
Table 4

Mean Values and Rating Frequencies for Team Process Items

Item (mean) Mean Excellent Good Fair Poor None

Participation 3.49 56.4 38.5 2.6 2.6

Mutual Respect* 3.47 55.3 36.8 7.9

Trust (3.41) 3.41 46.2 48.7 5.1

Mutual Support 3.26 41 43.6 15.4

Goals and Roles 3.23 41 41 17.9

Climate) 3.18 33.3 51.3 15.4

Cohesion 3.15 33.3 48.7 17.9

Cooperation 3.15 33.3 48.7 17.9

Pride** 3.14 32.4 48.6 18.9

Problem Solving* 3.13 36.8 39.5 23.7

Atmosphere 3.13 35.9 42 23.1

Decision Making 3.08 38.5 30.8 30.8

Leadership 2.95 28.2 41 28.2 2.6

Communication 2.95 30.8 41 20.5 7.7

Note: Means based on Excellent = 4, Good = 3, Fair = 2, Poor = 1, None= 0

Percentages based on N = 39

*n=38

**n = 37

The second questionnaire, adapted from Eitington (1996), consisted of eight statements

about the quality of the team experience (roles are clear, roles are balanced, decision making is

effective, team members work well together, I need to work with the other member to get my job

done, I'm satisfied with my level of participation in this team, conflict is handled appropriately

and effectively). Rating choices could vary from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". Table 5

presents the mean rating value and rating percentages for each item. The table lists the items in

descending order of the mean values. Again, in general the participants reported a high level of

satisfaction with their membership on the team. The dimension with the highest mean score was

'roles are clear' with a 3.38. The lowest scoring characteristic was 'roles are balanced' with a

mean of 2.85. Clearly, the roles were not and were not intended to be balanced in that the Team

Leader was expected to lead the mission.

24
Table 5

Mean Values and Percentages for Team Process Ratings.

Item Mean Strongly

Agree

Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly

Disagree

Roles are clear. 3.38 46.2% 46.2 7.7

Team members work well

together.

3.36 41 53.8 5.1

I'm satisfied with my

membership in this team.

3.33 43.6 48.7 5.1 2.6

I need to work with the other

member to get my job done.

3.28 64.1 17.9 7.7 2.6 7.7

Conflict is handled

appropriately and effectively.

3.23 35.9 53.8 7.7 2.6

I'm satisfied with my level of

participation in this team.

3.18 35.9 51.3 7.7 5.1

Decision making is effective. 3.08 28.2 51.3 20.5

Roles are balanced. 2.85 28.2 43.6 12.8 15.4

Note: Means based on Strongly Agree = 4, Agree = 3, Neutral = 2, Disagree = 1, Strongly

Disagree = 0

Percentages based on N = 39

Presence

Previous ARIVE research has employed the Presence Questionnaire (PQ) and Immersive

Tendencies Questionnaire (ITQ) developed by Witmer and Singer (1994). The PQ was designed

to measure the extent to which the VE participant is immersed and involved with the VE. They

define presence as the subjective experience of being in one place or environment (the VE) when

one is physically situated in another (the real-world VE system). The ITQ was developed to

measure the tendency to become involved or immersed. Both questionnaires use participant selfreport.

Forty participants completed the questionnaires. We had expected that the mean for the

PQ Total Score would be higher than previous ARI VE experiments. This expectation was based

upon the use in this experiment of VEs and tasks that are more complex, the presence of a

teammate, and the use of sound effects. However, the PQ Total Score mean and standard

deviation for this experiment (M = 98.54, SD = 13.48) were similar to averaged values for

previous experiments (M = 98.11, SD = 15.78) reported in Witmer and Singer (1994). Also

contrary to our expectations, the correlation between PQ Total and ITQ Total (r= .164, p_= .340)

was not significant.

25
Discussion

The FITT System

This was the first experiment we conducted with FITT. In addition to examining the use

of instructional strategies in distributed immersive VEs, this research also served as a

demonstration of new immersive VE technologies and as a usability test of new approaches to

moving in, and interacting with, immersive VEs.

In general, the FITT seems to function well as a system for conducting research on team

training using immersive VEs. The mission tasks combined many generalizable task components

across related but separate domains, such as infantry tactics, SWAT tactics and HAZMAT

operations. The HAZMAT equipment and environment that support the mission provided a

concise and logical storyline. In addition, the avatars'HAZMAT gear lead to user acceptance of

system limitations.

The cognitive aspects of the mission, and not the mechanics of using the VE interface,

were the greatest challenge for most participants. Most participants reported that they enjoyed

the experience, and seemed highly motivated to perform well on the missions.

A few individuals seemed overwhelmed by the experience, perhaps by the immersive VE

and/or the stress of leading a team, and did not function effectively as team leaders even after

three practice missions. From a training research perspective this is not necessarily a bad thing,

in that some individuals would struggle if placed in a leadership position in comparable realworld tasks.

The FITT system for walking in the VE worked very well. The locomotion system has

two strong points: the participant's vestibular and ocular systems are always in accord, and the

system requires little train-up time for a novice.

The structured approach to train-up on the FTTT system was effective and should be

considered for other VE training applications. The narrated videotape provided the participants

with a good overview of the system before they were immersed. Simplified VEs and tasks

designed specifically to familiarize the participants with the FTTT system avoided

inconsistencies that can result from a "free play " familiarization session.

In general, the FITT system operated reliably over a data collection period spanning

several months. The few significant problems, described below, have been flagged for correction

in subsequent versions of the FITT system.

In our experimental design, an important measure of performance was to be the number

of times the OPFOR shot members of a team per encounter. A team that followed procedures

should be hit fewer times than a team that did not follow procedures. For example, following

appropriate procedures, a good team would enter the room quickly with the Team Leader

moving far enough into the room to allow the Equipment Specialist to enter. The Team Leader

would cover the left side of the room, the Equipment Specialist the right side. Both team

26
members would announce contact, specifying the location and number of OPFOR sighted, and

rapidly engage the enemy. The team would sustain few hits even if caught in a crossfire. In

contrast, if a Team Leader froze in the doorway or either member failed to cover their assigned

sector, that team would sustain many hits. For various reasons related to network speed and

object modeling, correctly aimed shots by team members did not always result in timely

incapacitation ofthe OPFOR. This resulted in several instances in which teams quickly and

accurately performed action on contact procedures, but still were hit many times by the OPFOR.

This unwanted delay varied considerably across missions and therefore the number of hits

received was not a usable measure of team performance. As might be expected, a related

problem was that participants would continue to fire at OPFOR until the OPFOR would fall.

Therefore, the shots fired per encounter measure was more a function of system delay than of

aiming accuracy and therefore was also unusable.

For a few data collection sessions, data capture and storage were corrupted to the extent

that data from those sessions were unusable. For some other sessions, problems with audio data

capture prevented analysis of the communication procedures. In addition to correcting data

capture reliability, the system should provide some indication to the experimenter that data

capture is, or is not, occurring.

A major problem we encountered in this research was unrelated to the FITT system itself.

In designing and conducting research on training applications of VE there are challenges

associated with the new and very rapidly changing software and hardware technologies

necessary for the creation of immersive, interactive VEs. However, in conducting this

experiment, the greatest challenge by far was the recruitment of participants. There were two

aspects to this; participant "no-shows", and the great variation across participants along

characteristics that we might expect to influence mission performance.

Our design called for two participants at a time. In over seven years of VE research

conducted in the ARI/IST laboratory, we have experienced systematic problems with "no

shows", that is, students who agree to participate but fail to report at the agreed upon time. For

this, our first team training experiment, no-shows were especially problematic in that our design

called for two participants at a time. As explained in detail in the procedure section, when only

one of the two participants scheduled reported for the experiment, we employed an

experimenter's confederate to serve as the second team member. The use of a confederate,

holding constant the capabilities and motivation of the second team member, could be a useful

approach to team training research and perhaps even team training for that matter. In addition,

confederates could be useful in developing and testing role-playing rules to be implemented in

computer-generated friendly forces. However, in this situation the use of a confederate was by

necessity, not by choice, and added the complication of trying to balance across the four

instructional strategy groups the number of teams composed of two recruited participants versus

one recruited participant and a confederate.

A second problem was that participants varied greatly in characteristics that we might

expect to influence performance on mission procedures. Some of our participants had prior

experience that probably helped them during the missions. For example, our participants

included a veteran SWAT team leader, Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets, and avid

27
computer gamers. Other participants had almost no experience with computers, and for some

English was not their native language.

Both of these problems could be mitigated by a formal arrangement for research

participation by ROTC cadets, law enforcement officers, or military personnel.

Instructional Strategies

Before data collection began, we assumed that a unique advantage of the demonstration

was that it clearly conveyed an appropriate mission tempo, that is the appropriate speed to

perform the procedures. The performance measure of number of rooms searched, and our

subjective evaluations of team performance, indicated that on average, teams not in the

demonstration group actually assumed a faster tempo than the demonstration group. The steady

tempo conveyed in the demonstration apparently emphasized accuracy over speed. It is also

possible that the demonstration teams performed more slowly because the had less practice on

the task than did the coaching and control groups. Nevertheless, for situations in which a faster

tempo is desired, a demonstration could start off at a slower pace, so that the procedures are easy

to observe by the trainee, and then the tempo is increased.

We also observed that team members in the demonstration group not only remembered

the mission procedures from the demonstration, but also closely modeled specific aspects of the

voice communications. For example, when announcing it was time to exit the building, several

of the Team Leaders used phrasing (not specified in the training manual) very similar to what

they had heard in the demonstration. Although more than 90% of the demonstration teams

attempted to exit the building, only about 58 exited in time. Thus, the demonstration clearly

presented a highly memorable example of announcing it was time to exit, but did not convey

with equivalent effectiveness the higher level skills, such as monitoring time and avoiding

distractions, needed to successfully exit within the time limit.

An implication of the observation that the participants imitated closely the tempo and

voice communications is that a demonstration should not include any aspect of behavior that you

do not want the trainees to copy.

The demonstration intervention is by far the easiest to administer. After the initial effort

to produce and record the demonstration mission, it is easy to administer and makes sure that

each team receives the same information before their first practice mission.

Coaching was the most difficult intervention to administer. In some situations it was very

valuable to be able to correct a mistake the first time it happened rather than watch a procedure

being practiced incorrectly throughout a mission as could occur in the other groups. However,

there was a tendency to provide too much feedback too soon. In addition, because performance

at the beginning of the first practice mission tended to include many errors, coaching was

vulnerable to being too negative.

The design of our VEs, in contrast to open terrain or larger building models, took away

one potential advantage of coaching. The teams could not get lost or stray outside their assigned

28
sector because the doorway leading beyond their sector was locked. An attempt to go through

that doorway was scored as an error but they could not waste a significant amount of the mission

time becoming lost, realizing they are lost, and working their way back to where they should be.

Coaching would allow intervention at some point during this "lost patrol" situation, reducing the

amount of misspent training time.

In contrast to the coaching group in which the experimenter had to provide feedback

immediately, the critique given during the replay benefited from the context of having seen the

entire mission beforehand. An approach that seemed to work well was to make only one or two

points per room. In that way, by the end of the replay most problems could be addressed and

examples of good performance could also be noted.

Here are some examples of mistakes which were frequently pointed out during both

coaching missions and mission replays. The Team Leader would often start the stack standing

too far away from the door about to be entered. This does not allow the Equipment Specialist

enough room to stack behind the Team Leader. For either coaching or replay, the experimenter

would point out this error. Another frequent mistake involved initial contact with OPFOR when

entering a room. Some Team Leaders would freeze in the doorway, preventing the Equipment

Specialist from entering the room. Other frequent mistakes involved forgetting to use the radio

call signs and forgetting to switch to the pistol after using the paint marker. "Keep track of the

elapsed time" was a frequent admonition.

That at least some of the control group teams did well indicated that the mission manual

contained adequate information and that practice without any external guidance could lead to

improved performance. For other control group teams, performance actually deteriorated as they

forgot procedures or developed nonproductive or counterproductive variations of the procedures.

These instruction strategies are not mutually exclusive. We expect that an effective VE

training system would use aspects of all of these strategies.

There are a number of factors which may have contributed to the failure to find

statistically significant differences in performance scores between the control group and the three

instructional strategy conditions. The first was the high variability in performance among teams

even in the same treatment condition. The participant population was highly heterogeneous,

including introductory psychology students and advanced ROTC students, a wide range of ages,

and teams composed of members who were sometimes close friends, sometimes complete

strangers, and sometimes even parent and adult child. Whereas some teams were truly naive

teams, others included a confederate.

The second factor was the multidimensional nature of the task, which allowed teams the

flexibility to give greater emphasis to different aspects of the task, such as speed of search or

accuracy.

The third factor was the effectiveness of the control group training. Control group

performance improved over the three missions, despite the fact that those teams were given no

feedback other than that intrinsic to the task. This intrinsic feedback, combined with the fact that

29
the control group received more task practice than all but the coaching group teams, was

apparently enough to boost their performance to the level of the instructional strategy groups.

The results might have been very different ifthe groups had been equated on mission time, rather

than total training time,

Finally, it should be noted that the teams actually had very little exposure to the

instructional strategies. The demonstration and replay sessions lasted eight minutes each.

Coaching was provided during two eight-minute missions, while the team was actually engaged

in performing the mission.

Presence

We had expected, but did not find, that the Presence questionnaire scores would be higher

than previous ARIVE experiments. This expectation was based upon the use in this experiment

of VEs and tasks that are more complex, the presence of a teammate, and the use of sound

effects. In addition, several of the participants reported that they felt highly involved in the

missions to that extent that they became nervous. It may be that the high complexity of the

experimental task so engrossed the participants in trying to recall the correct procedures that they

did not attend to the other aspects ofthe VE. For VE training research, significant challenges

remain as to how to define and measure the sense of presence.

Future Research

Technical lessons learned from this experiment were used in the development of a

follow-on system that will be used in research to examine distributed team training in which the

participants are at remote sites. Lessons learned concerning the instructional strategies will be

incorporated in a Science and Technology Objective (STO) involving Virtual Environments for

Dismounted Soldier Simulation, Training, and Mission Rehearsal.

30
References

Alluisi, Earl. A. (1991). The development of technology for collective training: SJJV1NET, a case

history. Human Factors, 33(3), pp. 343-362.

Durlach, N. I., & Mavor, A. S. (Eds.) (1995). Virtual Reality: Scientific and technological

challenges. National Research Council, National Academy Press, USA.

Eitington, J. L. (1996). The winning trainer. Gulf Publishing Company, Houston, Texas.

Harvey, T. R., and Drolet, B. (1994). Building teams, building people: Expanding thefifth

resource. Technomic Publishing Co., Lancaster.

Howell, D. C. (1997). Statistical Methodsfor Psychology. Duxbury Press. Belmont, CA.

Johnson, W. L, Rickel, J., Stiles. R., & Munro, A. (1998). Integrating pedagogical agents into

Virtual Environments. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, Vol. 7, No. 6, 523-

546.

Knerr B. W., Lampton, D. R., Singer, M. J., Witmer, B.G., Goldberg, S. L., Parsons, K.A., &

Parsons, J. (1998). Virtual Environmentsfor dismounted soldier training andperformance:

Results, recommendations, and issues. (Technical Report 1089). Alexandria, VA: U.S. Army

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The Virtual Environment Performance Assessment Battery (VEPAB): Development and

evaluation. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 3(2), 145-157.

Lampton, D. R., Rodriguez, M. E., & Cotton, J. E. (2000). Simulator sickness symptoms during

team training in immersive virtual environments. Proceedings ofthe 44th Annual Meeting of

the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. San Diego, CA.

Loftin, R. B. (1998). Distributed Virtual Environments for collective training. Proceedings ofthe

1998 IMAGE Conference. Scottsdale, AZ. August.

Meliza, L. (1996). Standardizing Army after-action review systems^ (ARI Research Report

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(AD-A32-2044)

MIL-M-38784B. (1983). Military Specification Manuals, Technical: General Style and Format

Requirements. Washington, DC: Department of Defense

Parsons, J., Lampton, D. R., Parsons, K. A., Knerr, B. W., Russell, D., Martin, G., Daly, J.,

Kline, B., Weaver, M. (1998). Fully immersive team training: A networked testbed for

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ground-based training missions. Proceedings ofthe Interservice/Industry Training Systems

and Education Conference. Orlando, FL.

Reason, J. T. and Brand, J. J. (1975). Motion sickness. London: Academic Press.

Salas, E-, Dickinson, T. L., Converse, S. A., & Tannenbaum, S. I. (1992). Toward an

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Their training and performance (pp. 3-29). Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp.

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Tolani, Deepak & Badler, Norman I. (1996). Real-Time Inverse Kinematics of the Human Arm.

Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 5(4), 393-401.

32
Appendix A. Acronyms

AAR After Action Review

ARI U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences

CGES Computer Generated Entity Server

DIS Distributed Interactive Simulation

FITT Fully Immersive Team Training

HAZMAT Hazardous Materials

HMD Head Mounted Display

ICS Individual Combatant Simulator

ITQ Immersive Tendencies Questionnaire

MCO Multi Channel Option

OPFOR Opposing Forces

PC Personal Computer

PDU Protocol Data Unit

PQ Presence Questionnaire

RE2 Reality Engine 2

ROTC Reserve Officer Training Corps

SGI Silicon Graphics, Inc

SSQ Simulator Sickness Questionnaire

STO Science and Technology Objective

STRICOM Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command

SWAT Special Weapons and Tactics Teams

VCR Video Cassette Recorder

VE Virtual Environment

VEPAB Virtual Environment Performance Assessment Battery

A-l
Appendix B

Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT)

Team Training Manual

Duty Position: Team Leader

Team Leader Trainee

(name)

(date)

B-l
Team Task Overview

A two-person team searches rooms of a building for canisters containing hazardous gas. The

team carries equipment to determine if a canister contains gas and to deactivate the canisters. The

search is complicated by the threat of interference by looters and terrorists. Each team member

carries a tranquilizer dart gun (Pistol) which can temporarily incapacitate the enemy. Air tank

capacity limits the search time to a maximum of 8 minutes per mission. Simulated speed of

movement is at most a fast walk.

Team member #1 is the designated Team Leader. The Team Leader directs team movement to

provide an efficient search while maintaining team security. The leader radios reports of

deactivations and encounters with the enemy to an off-site Mission Commander. In addition to a

Pistol, the Team Leader carries a Paint Marker used to mark rooms that have been searched.

Team member #2 is the HAZMAT (hazardous materials) Equipment Specialist. In addition to a

Pistol, the Equipment Specialist carries a device to detect if a canister is active and to deactivate

the canister.

You will have several opportunities to practice the procedures described in this manual. The

other members of your team will count on you to follow these procedures.

The overall team performance measure is the number of canisters deactivated and reported.

Failure to exit the building before air supplies expire or major breakdowns in team security

procedures will be scored as failed missions.

Learning Objectives

In this manual you will learn:

The rule for the order in which to search rooms and how to keep track of which rooms you have

already searched.

How your team should move through hallways and enter rooms.

When and how to communicate using appropriate radio call signs.

What to do when you encounter ENEMY.

A general idea of the responsibilities of your other team member.

B-2
HAZMAT Team Member

Helmet provides protection

but restricts field of view.

Count-down timer

indicates remaining air

supply.

Your view of timer:

Suit and body armor

provide protection but

limit speed of movement

to walking only.

No running, crawling,

or jumping!

B-3
Team Leader Duties Overview

The primary duties of the Team Leader involve search, communications, and security

procedures.

Search:

1) use the right-turn rule (explained later) for efficient search of an assigned section of

the building

2) use the Paint Marker to mark a room after your team searches it

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Paint Marker

Communication:

1) inform the off-site Commander of your mission progress

2) coordinate search and security with your team member

Security:

1) move through hallways and doorways in proper team formation

2) use your Tranquilizer Pistol to engage enemy quickly and decisively

Tranquilizer Pistol

B-4
The Right-Turn Search Rule

The right turn rule is a rule of thumb to help you organize your search pattern. At any point in

the building where you have a choice of directions, turn right if possible. Look at Figure 1. For

this example assume that you start your mission in room #1. After searching that room you

would exit through the doorway on the east wall. Use the paint marker to put an "X" above the

doorway, indicating that you have searched that room. Exercising the right turn rule, you would

turn right (south) and proceed to the end of the hallway. The hallway is a dead end, so you would

turn around and proceed north. You will pass the room you just searched and come to a doorway

on the right side of the hallway. Exercising the right turn rule, you would search this room (#2)

and mark the doorway when you exit. Proceeding north, there is a doorway on the left side of the

hallway. Because it is on the left, you will pass that room for now. Proceeding north, you reach

the end of the hallway. There is a doorway straight ahead to the north and the hallway turns to

the right (East). Using the right turn rule, you would turn right and proceed to the next doorway

(room#3). Exit 3 and mark the doorway. A right turn takes you to room #4. After 4 the hallway is

a dead end. Turn around and proceed west. The doorway on the left (Room#4) will be marked

with an X because you already searched that room. Search and mark #5, and #6. When you exit

room 6 you could turn left or go straight ahead. You have already searched the rooms to the left.

Go straight (south). Search and mark the room on the right (#7). Proceed south to room #1 . You

have finished the search for this building.

Example of Room Search Sequence

B-5
Movement Procedures

Hallway Movement Technique

The Team will move through hallways in single file with the Team Leader in front. The

Equipment Specialist should walk about 10 feet behind the Team Leader. The Equipment

Specialist guards the team's back by frequently looking to the rear. The Team Leader should not

get too far ahead of the Equipment Specialist.

Room Entry and Exit

The team is most vulnerable to ENEMY attack when entering and exiting rooms.

ENTRY

The Team Leader should move to face the door ofthe room being careful not to activate the

door before the team is ready to enter. The Team Leader says "Stack" telling the Equipment

Specialist to move directly behind the Team Leader. The Equipment Specialist says "Ready"

when in position. The Equipment Specialist does not need to be exactly in line with the Team

Leader, but should be aligned to move through the doorway. The Team Leader says "Go" and

moves forward to activate the door. The Team Leader must move far enough into the room to

allow the Equipment Specialist to move into the room. The Team Leader should initially scan

the left side of the room and the Equipment Specialist should scan to the right.

B-6
EXIT

Before the team leaves the room the Equipment Specialist should select the Pistol.

The team should exit the room in single file, with the team leader in front. In the hallway, the

Equipment Specialist will watch for ENEMY while the Team Leader selects the Paint Marker,

marks the room just searched, and then selects the Pistol. The Team Leader will lead the team to

the next room to be searched.

Communications Procedures

Each HAZMAT helmet contains a radio set with headphones and a voice actuated microphone.

To talk over the radio just talk out loud. The radio set has no switches or manual controls.

Radio Call signs:

Sierra: Mission Commander

Green 1: Team Leader

Green2: Equipment Specialist

Except for a communications check at the beginning of each mission (explained later), team

members will usually not use call signs when talking to each other.

The Team Leader will report mission progress to the Mission Commander. The Team Leader

should always use the Commander's call sign "Sierra" ( see - air - ah) at the beginning of any

message for the Commander. The Equipment Specialist never talks to the Commander.

Examples of radio communications are given later in this manual.

B-7
Actions on Contact

During the mission your team may encounter ENEMY.

ENEMY may be:

lightly armed looters

or

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heavily armed terrorists

You may also encounter

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An innocent bystander (neutral).

An innocent bystander is reported as a "neutral".

B-8
Actions on Contact (continued)

When you first spot an ENEMY you should alert your partner by announcing "Contact Front!"

(or Left, Right, Rear as appropriate). Do NOT assume that your partner has seen the ENEMY.

Talk to each other! Shoot the ENEMY using your Pistol. Do not point your Pistol at your team

mate or risk a shot that may hit your team mate or a member of another HAZMAT team that has

mistakenly entered your area. Be sure of your target before you shoot.

After each encounter with the ENEMY the Team Leader should report to the mission

Commander:

Team Leader: "Sierra" [Commander's radio call sign]

"this is Green 1" [your call sign]

wait for Commander to answer

Commander: "Green1, this is Sierra"

the Team Leader will state: the number of ENEMY encountered, the kind of ENEMY, and the

results of engagement

Team Leader: "Sierra, Engaged and neutralized 2 lightly armed looters, over"

Commander: "Good work Green Team, continue mission"

Shoot any ENEMY in a room before trying to find or deactivate canisters. The team leader must

exercise judgment in that having each team member search separate sections of the room will

produce a faster search but sacrifices security.

The Team Leader should report to the Commander when your team sees an innocent bystander

(a neutral). You do not have equipment or time to help bystanders. A medical unit will be sent to

evacuate them after you have finished your mission.

B-9
Deactivating Canisters

When a canister is found the Equipment Specialist will use the detector/deactivator (DELTA2) to

determine if the canister is active and if so, to deactivate it. When the Delta2 is within about 5

feet of a canister the display will turn yellow ifthe canister is active. The display will turn red

when within deactivation range. When the display is red the Equipment Specialist presses the

trigger to deactivate the canister and the display will then turn green indicating a successful

deactivation. If the Delta2 display does not register yellow or red near a canister that canister is a

"dud". That is, it does not contain hazardous gas. The Equipment Specialist should inform the

Team Leader of the status of each canister.

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*:7>.ä Beyond about 5 feet, the Delta2 display

- '4& is "green" because gas, if any, is out of

vj...;.j range.

At about 2 feet, the display turns

Red if the canister is active.

When the Equipment Specialist

triggers the Delta2, the display turns

green, indicating deactivation.

Before leaving a room the Team Leader will report canisters that were detected.

(Team Leader) "Sierra, this is Green 1"

(Commander) "Green 1, go ahead"

(Team Leader) "Found two canisters, deactivated one, the other was a dud."

(Commander) "Continue mission"

B-10
Mission Preparation

You begin each mission from the back of an armored van. The letters PRIMED are on the inside

of the van door to give you something to focus on while you make final adjustments to your

helmet.

Both team members should check that their countdown timers are at "8:00", select the Pistol, and

face the van door. The Team Leader will conduct a communications (commo) check with the

Equipment Specialist:

(Team Leader): 'Green2, this is Green 1, commo check"

(Equipment Specialist): "Greenl, loud and clear"

The Team Leader will tell the mission Commander that the team is ready:

(Team Leader): "Sierra, Green Team is ready"

(Commander): 'Green Team, begin mission"

The van has been backed up to an opening in the building you are to search. The van door will

open onto the first room to be searched. After both team members exit the van the door will

close. Before eight minutes expire the team should be back at the van door. As the team

approaches the door the Team Leader should inform the Commander that the team is at the door

(the Commander will open the door by remote control). The Team Leader should tell the

Commander when both team members are back inside the van.

Outside view of van door

B-ll
Miscellaneous

The environment in which you will work is so noisy you must wear (simulated) hearing

protection that blocks ALL outside noise. Therefore, you can talk to your teammate and/or

mission controller only by the radio headset. You can not hear ENEMY, even if they shoot at

you. If you are hit by ENEMY bullets, collide with objects, or open doors you may hear sound

conducted within your suit.

Although your HAZMAT suit and body armor protect you from ENEMY weapons, you must

deal quickly with ENEMY or else they may damage your equipment causing the mission to fail.

Do not attempt to move anything such as furniture or debris. Because of the heat and corrosive

gas emitted by an active canister, a canister can not be hidden in or under anything.

Your Tranquilizer Pistol contains 10 darts per mission.

The Paint Marker contains enough paint for about 12 charges per mission.

The Delta2 has enough battery power to deactivate about 10 canisters per mission. Attempting to

deactivate a canister that is already inactive wastes the battery of the Delta2.

If both team members shoot at and hit the same individual ENEMY that is at best a waste of

ammunition and may complicate the work of the medical recovery team. However, it would be

better for both to shoot than to have neither shoot and allow the ENEMY to shoot you.

Shooting ENEMY with your paint marker is a waste of paint and is scored as an error.

Do not cross into the search area of other teams. If other teams mistakenly enter your area,

contact your Commander. The other teams use different radio frequencies, therefore you can not

communicate directly with them.

Review:

Sierra: Mission Commander

Green 1: Team Leader

Green2: Equipment Specialist

Delta 2 : detector/deactivator device

pistol: tranquilizer dart gun

marker: paint spray device

canister: hazardous materials container

a canister may be active: (live)

a canister may be inactive: no longer a threat (dud)

B-12
P Preparation: conduct radio and air supply timer checks

R Right-turn rule: search rooms in correct order

I Inform your team mate and Commander about ENEMY

and canisters

M Movement technique: move single file and "stack" before

room entry

E Exit building (return to van) before time expires

D Detect and deactivate canisters (primary goal of mission!)

B-13