Functional Area Problems. Opportunities, and Constraints 31 



is scheduled for the summer of 1982. Fiill system com- 

 munications will be added in 1983. 



HUMAN RESOURCES 



The availability of sufficient numbers of committed scien- 

 tists and engineers is a prerequisite to the success of the 

 defense-related R&D programs highlighted in this sec- 

 tion. For that reason, current and anticipated future con- 

 straints on the supply of qualified engineers are of particu- 

 lar concern to the defense mission (Section I-B). The 

 armed services are continuing to experience difficulties in 

 recruiting and retaining qualified engineers, in part be- 

 cause of the high starting salaries available in private 

 industry. For the same reason, university engineering 

 departments, which may be called upon to conduct a wide 

 range of defense-related research during the next 5 years. 

 are unable to fill all available faculty positions.- Those 

 problems could become increasingly severe during the 

 decade. 



More broadly, the rapid advances in science and tech- 

 nology that have increased the complexity of occupations 

 and professions in the civilian sector during the past 20 

 years have brought about similar complexities in the de- 

 fense sector. Weapons systems are more sophisticated, the 

 speed of battle has increased, and the demands on the 

 individual are mounting. Thus, a reasonable level of sci- 

 ence and technology literacy is increasingly desirable, if 

 not essential, for military personnel at all levels. In recog- 

 nition of those circumstances, the Soviet Union has de- 

 veloped a curriculum in mathematics, science, and tech- 

 nology at the primary and secondary school levels, which 

 is, on paper, the most advanced in the world. ' In contrast, 

 the degree of science and technology literacy of American 

 high school graduates who are not intent on careers in 

 science, engineering, or such related professions as medi- 

 cine appears to have eroded seriously since the 

 mid-1960s.' 



Resolution of those problems involves a range of issues 

 that go beyond science and technology. In any event, since 

 the complexity of the defense mission is certain to in- 

 crease, research is being pursued in several behavioral 

 science fields with the objective of making the most 

 effective use of the human resources available to the 

 armed services. For example, it has become very costly to 

 train people to operate and maintain high-technology 

 weapons systems. Indeed, the cost of the training equip- 

 ment often approaches the cost of the actual weapons 

 system itself. Many of the skills needed for combat cannot 

 be imparted using conventional techniques in a peacetime 

 environment. For those reasons the Department of De- 

 fense conducts research in education aimed at the de- 

 velopment of instructional systems, the identification and 

 validation of candidate training media, and the assessment 

 of output performance. 



Current and evolving computer technologies are ex- 

 pected to influence the methods and effectiveness of per- 

 sonnel training. One result will be to make possible com- 

 puter-based instruction systems capable of holding 

 complicated conversations about a subject comparable to 

 a Socratic dialog. By 1985, there should be several in- 

 structional systems of this type in daily use, and numerous 

 efforts will be under way to expand the range of topics 

 covered and the depth of understanding possessed by the 

 systems. Also, by 1985, a knowledge representation 

 scheme for aircraft maintenance data will be developed 

 and demonstrated. It is anticipated that the system can be 

 provided at reasonable cost and that it will be suitable both 

 for training aircraft mechanics and for providing a diag- 

 nostic aid for special problems. Once the knowledge 

 representation technology is demonstrated, it should be 

 rapidly applied to a variety of other systems during the 

 latter half of the decade. 



Another major defense-related behavioral research pro- 

 gram aims at enhancing the information-processing and 

 decisionmaking capabilities of people working in de- 

 manding environments through better understanding of 

 interactions between human operators and computers. In 

 today's defense missions, sophisticated sensor and com- 

 munications systems can gather an overwhelming amount 

 of information that is valuable or critical to the conduct of 

 operations. Better management of information must occur 

 at the interface between machine presentation and human 

 response in order to cope with the information load. 

 Automation of more processing functions certainly can 

 contribute to information handling, but even far into 

 the future, effective and dependable system performance 

 will still require effective human operators and 

 decisionmakers. 



Some problems that require attention in addressing the 

 interface between machine presentation and human cogni- 

 tive responses in the context of military operational en- 

 vironments and systems are: 



(1) Dealing with potential information overload for oper- 

 ators and decisionmakers; 



(2) Dealing with time-critical information; 



(3) Deciding what information in a high-volume system 

 to save or store; 



(4) Finding the optimal organization for different mixes 

 of information; 



(5) Dealing with data bases prone to undetected errors or 

 missing data; 



(6) Presenting information in an optimal way for such 

 diverse functions as alerting for a critical event, 

 monitoring for an infrequent failure, diagnosing a 

 problem condition, or presenting alternative courses 

 of action; and 



(7) Providing requisite control/input interfaces and em- 

 ploying effective feedback to users with varied skill 

 and knowledge about the computer system. 



