1,721,020 research outputs found
Telling stories: a metagame description of a conflict
No full textThis paper describes the use of metagame analysis to describe and explore a conflict situation. The analysis was carried out by the author, who was associated with one of the parties in the conflict, for his own benefit. A full description of the analysis is provided. A particular characteristic of the situation was that it was not possible to specify preferences for scenarios for any of the actors with a reasonable degree of confidence. This made the standard metagame analysis approach unworkable, and an alternative approach, involving the development of stories describing a variety of possible future events, was used instead
Modelling risk trade-off
No full textThis paper considers the trade-offs that may be made in the risk and uncertainty associated with various performance criteria of a project activity. Specifically, duration, cost and quality are the criteria considered, and the uncertainties in them are regarded as manifestations of the intrinsic risk of the activity. Three complementary approaches to conceptualizing and modelling risk trade-offs, as an aid to project planning, are presented in the context of a single activity. A cognitive mapping approach encourages articulation and exploration of ideas about risk trade-offs. A contingency-response analysis approach aids detailed risk contingency planning. A risk-level approach provides a picture of risk exposure options. This last approach, in particular, is developed in the context of projects consisting of sequences of activities
Cognitive processes and operational research: a human information processing perspective
No full textThis paper discusses the practice and process of OR in the light of an understanding of human information processing as developed in the field of cognitive psycholog
Assessing problem complexity
No full textThe difficulty of objectively measuring the decision-making load imposed by a complex decision problem on a human decision maker is identified. It is suggested that a technique for such measurement would be useful in Operational Research. The secondary task technique, a method much used by psychologists and ergonomists to assess the mental processing load presented to subjects by a variety of tasks, is discussed. It is observed that the type of complex problem often of interest in Operational Research is characterised by the involvement of model building in the process of solution. An experiment is presented to compare the mental load presented by a number of different chess problems using a mental arithmetic secondary task, and it is shown that the method appears to be valid for the study of complex problems
Cognitive maps of decision-makers in a complex game
No full textThis paper illustrates the use of a cognitive mapping technique to examine the behaviour and perceptions of individual decision-makers. A cognitive map is a representation of the subjective decision-making environment of an individual. Seven military officers each played two scenarios in a research wargame. Analysis of their communications in the game showed that individual players were remarkably consistent over the two scenarios, but their perceptions of their common decision-making environment differed noticeably. Differences related to the size and complexity of their cognitive maps, the detailed interpretation of the maps, the players' confidence and anticipation of the future and the way in which the maps were altered as time progressed
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