Shared Mental Models and Shared Displays: An Empirical Evaluation of Team Performance

This study experimentally tested the use of shared mental models and shared displays as a means of enhancing team situation awareness (SA). Teams were tested using a simulation that incorporated features of a distributed team architecture. As hypothesized, the presence of shared displays and shared mental models improved team performance. However, the mechanism whereby the shared displays aided performance was not direct as expected. Teams were slower when given a shared display initially. After the shared display was removed, performance exceeded all other conditions, however. The combination of non-shared displays and no mental model was highly detrimental to performance. Teams who experienced this condition first were unable to ever develop very good performance. Overall, we found that effective team performance could be enhanced by providing teams with sufficient information to build a shared mental model of each other's tasks and goals, either through direct instruction, or through provision of shared displays. It is believed that the shared displays helped to build shared mental models which boosted later task performance.