Using ACT-R to Model Collective Sensemaking in Military Coalition Environments

Cognitive social simulations, enabled by cognitive architectures (such as ACT-R), are particularly well-suited for advancing our understanding of socially-distributed and socially-situated cognition. As a result, multi-agent simulations featuring the use of ACT-R agents may be important in improving our understanding of the factors that influence collective sensemaking. While previous studies demonstrate the feasibility of using ACT-R to model collective cognition, as well as sensemaking processes at the individual level, the development of an ACT-R model of collective sensemaking in a coalition environment presents a range of relatively novel methodological, technological and modeling challenges. Such challenges include the need to equip ACT-R agents with communication capabilities, the need to deal with highly dynamic information environments, the need to support intelligent information retrieval capabilities, and the need to represent inter-agent cognitive differences. These challenges shape the nature of research and development efforts to create a multi-agent simulation capability that can be used to explore the impact of different sociotechnical interventions on collective sensemaking processes. In this paper, we discuss the research efforts being undertaken to address these challenges in the context of the International Technology Alliance (ITA) research program. We also discuss the motivations for using ACT-R to model collective sensemaking processes and outline some opportunities for model application and empirical evaluation