Team Displays Work, Particularly with Communication Breakdown: Performance and Situation Awareness in a Simulated Forest Fire

Abstract

A team display provides integrated information required by teams performing command and control tasks in complex situations. This study assessed the impact of such an information display using the C3Fire micro-world simulation of command and control tasks when managing forest fire incidents. The study focused on the impact of the team display when teamwork was interrupted by communication breakdown. The findings show that performance was significantly better with the team display, in terms of a lower mean number of lost houses, particularly when there was a communication breakdown. In addition, the presence of the team display was associated with better situation awareness. In practical terms, the study shows that a team display facilitates performance and situation awareness. In theoretical terms, there may be other cognitive processes and contributing factors to the benefit of the team display in addition to facilitating situation awareness.