BBN Technologies

A Game-Based Testbed for Culture & Personality Research

This project studies the effects of cultural factors and personality differences in team performance. Of particular interest are the sorts of teamwork skills needed for military operations other than war (MOOTW), when personnel work in a foreign culture and in multi-national coalitions.

Sponsored by the United States' Department of Defense Defense Modeling and Simulation Office, the initial focus of this project is the testbed's capability to collect human-behavior data.

The overall vision also includes using the testbed to develop and evaluate implementations of culturally parameterized behavior models. In pursuit of this research, the project instruments an immersive, role-playing game from the commercial market.

The Problem

• Unfamiliar Cultures - Adversaries' decision-making is heavily influenced by cultural factors less familiar to U.S. personnel.
• Asymmetric Threats - Understanding and dealing with adversaries and allies from less familiar cultures becomes critical in an era of asymmetric threats.

Sample Areas of Study

Among the areas of study is the effect of better cultural understanding on the quality and effectiveness of:

• Task and mission accomplishment
• Decision making
• Situational adaptability
• Information sharing

Testbed

• Multi-player format
• Reasonable military situation portrayal
• Versatility through authorable scenarios
• Hooks to facilitate entity control by human behavior models (HBMs)
• Teammates and opponents playable by humans and HBMs
• Automated data capture
• Multiple mechanisms for data collection: (in-game behaviors as well as out-of-game surveys)
• Freely available to researchers and military organizations