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Effects of Note-Taking Method on Knowledge Transfer in Inspection Tasks

Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)

Stites, Mallory C.; Matzen, Laura E.; Smartt, Heidi A.; Gastelum, Zoe N.

International nuclear safeguards inspectors visit nuclear facilities to assess their compliance with international nonproliferation agreements. Inspectors note whether anything unusual is happening in the facility that might indicate the diversion or misuse of nuclear materials, or anything that changed since the last inspection. They must complete inspections under restrictions imposed by their hosts, regarding both their use of technology or equipment and time allotted. Moreover, because inspections are sometimes completed by different teams months apart, it is crucial that their notes accurately facilitate change detection across a delay. The current study addressed these issues by investigating how note-taking methods (e.g., digital camera, hand-written notes, or their combination) impacted memory in a delayed recall test of a complex visual array. Participants studied four arrays of abstract shapes and industrial objects using a different note-taking method for each, then returned 48–72Â h later to complete a memory test using their notes to identify objects changed (e.g., location, material, orientation). Accuracy was highest for both conditions using a camera, followed by hand-written notes alone, and all were better than having no aid. Although the camera-only condition benefitted study times, this benefit was not observed at test, suggesting drawbacks to using just a camera to aid recall. Change type interacted with note-taking method; although certain changes were overall more difficult, the note-taking method used helped mitigate these deficits in performance. Finally, elaborative hand-written notes produced better performance than simple ones, suggesting strategies for individual note-takers to maximize their efficacy in the absence of a digital aid.

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TYPE Conference Poster YEAR 2019
ScopusOSTIDOI

The Impact of Information Presentation on Visual Inspection Performance in the International Nuclear Safeguards Domain

Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)

Matzen, Laura E.; Stites, Mallory C.; Smartt, Heidi A.; Gastelum, Zoe N.

International nuclear safeguards inspectors are tasked with verifying that nuclear materials in facilities around the world are not misused or diverted from peaceful purposes. They must conduct detailed inspections in complex, information-rich environments, but there has been relatively little research into the cognitive aspects of their jobs. We posit that the speed and accuracy of the inspectors can be supported and improved by designing the materials they take into the field such that the information is optimized to meet their cognitive needs. Many in-field inspection activities involve comparing inventory or shipping records to other records or to physical items inside of a nuclear facility. The organization and presentation of the records that the inspectors bring into the field with them could have a substantial impact on the ease or difficulty of these comparison tasks. In this paper, we present a series of mock inspection activities in which we manipulated the formatting of the inspectors’ records. We used behavioral and eye tracking metrics to assess the impact of the different types of formatting on the participants’ performance on the inspection tasks. The results of these experiments show that matching the presentation of the records to the cognitive demands of the task led to substantially faster task completion.

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TYPE Conference Poster YEAR 2019
ScopusOSTIDOI

FY2017 Final Report: Power of the People: A technical ethical and experimental examination of the use of crowdsourcing to support international nuclear safeguards verification

Gastelum, Zoe N.; Sentz, Kari S.; Swanson, Meili C.; Rinaudo, Cristina R.

Recent advances in information technology have led to an expansion of crowdsourcing activities that utilize the “power of the people” harnessed via online games, communities of interest, and other platforms to collect, analyze, verify, and provide technological solutions for challenges from a multitude of domains. To related this surge in popularity, the research team developed a taxonomy of crowdsourcing activities as they relate to international nuclear safeguards, evaluated the potential legal and ethical issues surrounding the use of crowdsourcing to support safeguards, and proposed experimental designs to test the capabilities and prospect for the use of crowdsourcing to support nuclear safeguards verification.

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TYPE Other Report YEAR 2017
OSTIDOI

Brain Science and International Nuclear Safeguards: Implications from Cognitive Science and Human Factors Research on the Provision and Use of Safeguards-Relevant Information in the Field

ESARDA Bulletin

Gastelum, Zoe N.; Matzen, Laura E.; Smartt, Heidi A.; Horak, Karl E.; Moyer, Eric; St. Pierre, Matthew E.

Today’s international nuclear safeguards inspectors have access to an increasing volume of supplemental information about the facilities under their purview, including commercial satellite imagery, nuclear trade data, open source information, and results from previous safeguards activities. In addition to completing traditional in-field safeguards activities, inspectors are now responsible for being able to act upon this growing corpus of supplemental safeguards-relevant data and for maintaining situational awareness of unusual activities taking place in their environment. However, cognitive science research suggests that maintaining too much information can be detrimental to a user’s understanding, and externalizing information (for example, to a mobile device) to reduce cognitive burden can decrease cognitive function related to memory, navigation, and attention. Given this dichotomy, how can international nuclear safeguards inspectors better synthesize information to enhance situational awareness, decision making, and performance in the field? This paper examines literature from the fields of cognitive science and human factors in the areas of wayfinding, situational awareness, equipment and technical assistance, and knowledge transfer, and describes the implications for the provision of, and interaction with, safeguards-relevant information for international nuclear safeguards inspectors working in the field.

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TYPE Journal Article YEAR 2017
OSTI
Results 51–100 of 113
Results 51–100 of 113