Team Situation Awareness, Cohesion, and Autonomic Synchrony

This study evaluated the causal relationships among situation awareness (SA), cohesion, and autonomic synchrony (S) within teams. SA is often a team effort and should be more accurate in better-functioning teams.

Cohesive teams perform better overall, although the relationship appears reciprocal; the relationship to SA has not been considered previously. S is a collective neurocognitive activity that has been connected to team coordination, communication, and performance in some circumstances.

In this experiment, 71 undergraduates, organized into 16 teams, played two matches of a first-person shooter computer game and completed self-report measures of cohesion and SA. S was determined through time series analysis of electrodermal responses using the driver-empath framework.

Empaths and those who came from more synchronized teams reported less cohesion in the team. Granger causality regression showed reciprocal relations among SA, S, and cohesion that were both positive and negative after controlling for match difficulty.

The cohesion-SA relationship is similar to the reciprocal cohesion-performance relationship. S plays an important and independent role in both the social and cognitive aspects of team behavior. It is possible, furthermore, that individuals who are more attuned to their co-workers reported a more accurate, and less obliging, social situation.

Results are applicable to situations requiring teamwork in a dynamic environment.