Sense-Assess-Augment: A Taxonomy for Human Effectiveness

Abstract : The Human Effectiveness Directorate at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has recently adopted a Sense-Assess-Augment (S-A-A) taxonomy to facilitate the planning, development, execution, and reporting of their human-centered research portfolio. The objective of this taxonomy is to sense individual and team cognitive state, assess the state relative to performance, and augment performance to optimize mission effectiveness. This taxonomy is being applied to revolutionize improvements in human performance by leveraging the integration of several sensing technologies coupled with multiple assessment approaches to provide a robust understanding of the causes of operator performance decrements. Given a better understanding of the causes for sub-optimal performance, targeted augmentation techniques can be employed to improve individual or team performance. The adopted taxonomy has been utilized in the Human Universal Measurement and Assessment Network (HUMAN) laboratory at the Air Force Research Laboratory to examine bottlenecks associated with controlling multiple Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPAs). This example will be used to illustrate how the S-A-A process was instantiated and utilized to identify and implement targeted augmentations that improve operator performance.