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COmmunication and WORKload analyses to study the COllective WORK of fighter pilots: the COWORK2 method

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Abstract

This paper presents the COWORK2 method, designed to classify the collective tasks of a fighter jet patrol according to two classification criteria: mental workload (at individual level) and communication quality (at team level). The classification purpose is to detect the tasks for which collective work could be impaired. A three-stage method is developed. Stage 1 consists in carrying out a task analysis with a subject matter expert to identify the collective tasks and characterize them in terms of commonly occurring situations and functions (constraints). In Stage 2, data related to individual mental workload (physiological measures) and team communications (communication recordings) are collected from a low-intrusiveness device in a highly realistic simulation environment. Stage 3 finally produces the classification of patrol collective tasks according to the two levels of analysis: individual and team. This classification is corroborated by the risk-level categorization of collective tasks achieved by a subject matter expert. The results highlight the relevance of the COWORK2 method.

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Acknowledgements

The development and the deployment of the COWORK2 method was supported by the TAPAS project (Technique d’Analyse pour le Partage d’Autorité dans les Systèmes des systèmes/Analysis Techniques for Shared Authority in the Systems of systems) supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR) and the French Defense Agency (DGA) involving Dassault Aviation and the Lab-STICC research laboratory. This project would not have been possible without the approval of the Navy Air Base at Landivisiau, France, and the assistance of all the members of the Rafale Simulation Center team. The authors are also grateful to all the fighter pilots who agreed to participate in this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lab-STICC UMR CNRS 6285, University of South Brittany, 56100, Lorient, France

    Julie Lassalle, Philippe Rauffet, Clément Guérin & Christine Chauvin

  2. Lab-STICC UMR CNRS 6285, Telecom Bretagne, 29238, Brest, France

    Baptiste Leroy & Gilles Coppin

  3. LMBA, UMR CNRS 6205, University of South Brittany, 56100, Lorient, France

    Farida Saïd

Authors
  1. Julie Lassalle
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  2. Philippe Rauffet
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  3. Baptiste Leroy
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  4. Clément Guérin
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  5. Christine Chauvin
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  6. Gilles Coppin
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  7. Farida Saïd
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Correspondence to Philippe Rauffet.

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Lassalle, J., Rauffet, P., Leroy, B. et al. COmmunication and WORKload analyses to study the COllective WORK of fighter pilots: the COWORK2 method. Cogn Tech Work 19, 477–491 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-017-0420-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-017-0420-8

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