CAREER: Improvisation in Response to Extreme Events

自然或技术灾害等极端事件对社会的规划和响应能力提出了挑战。正如极端事件决策的悠久历史所表明的那样，成功规划和有效应对的关键是灵活性。实现灵活性的一种方法是即兴创作：一种结合了行为和认知的活动，需要在紧迫的时间限制下创造力，以达到绩效目标。这项职业资助下的工作包括综合研究和教育计划，旨在改善社会对极端事件的理解、计划和支持。该研究项目的核心挑战是通过开发和测试关于应急响应中何时以及如何发生即兴的认知水平理论来提高对即兴的理解。该研究计划的第一个目标是产生关于即兴决策的认知水平理论，来自档案研究，实验和与从业者的互动相结合。该理论将以计算机可执行的形式表达，并通过与应急响应从业人员的实验进行评估。第二个目标是将可计算理论集成到一个原型群体决策支持系统中，其对决策的影响将通过在基于计算机的环境中进行实验来评估。教育计划的核心挑战是开发和评估技术和技术，以支持学习何时以及如何在应急响应中即兴发挥。教育计划的第一个目标是为应急响应从业人员提供制定，分析和支持即兴决策的培训。第二是向高中生、本科生和研究生介绍应急领域的职业。三是使研究生和本科生能够参与研究和教育计划。第四是向研究和从业人员社区以及整个社会传播这两个方案的成果。整个项目的研究和教学计划的整合将通过面对面和虚拟社区的知识和活动共享来实现，主要研究者和外部顾问委员会之间共享的工作将受到监督。这项工作的智力价值在于应用建模科学来创造认知科学交叉点的知识，这将有助于加强决策和应急管理领域的能力建设，从而满足制定跨学科办法管理极端事件的需要。由此产生的认知理论将扩展现有的学术研究，为今后的研究提供基础，并纳入教育活动，其效力将作为研究的一部分进行评估。 这项工作的更广泛影响是促进社会规划和应对极端事件的能力。该研究计划将提高对即兴创作何时以及如何发生的理解，产生的结果将被转化为教育材料，供广泛的社会经济范围内的学生使用。 该教育方案将利用这项研究，在城市环境中的高中生和大学生中引起对应急反应领域的赞赏和兴趣。最后，研究和教育方案的结果将广泛传播给研究和从业人员社区以及整个社会。

AbstractExtreme events such as natural or technological disasters challenge society's capabilities both for planning and response. As indicated by the long history of extreme event decision making, a key to successful planning and effective response is flexibility. One approach to achieving flexibility is improvisation: a combined behavioral and cognitive activity that requires creativity under tight time constraint in order to meet performance objectives. Work under this CAREER grant consists of integrated research and education programs designed to improve how society understands, plans for and supports improvisation in response to extreme events. The central challenge of the research program is to improve understanding of improvisation by developing and testing cognitive-level theory about when and how improvisation occurs in emergency response. The first goal of the research program is to produce cognitive-level theory about improvised decision making, derived from a combination of archival research, experimentation and interaction with practitioners. The theory will be expressed in computer-executable form and evaluated via experimentation with emergency response practitioners. The second goal is to integrate the computable theory into a prototype group decision support system, whose impact on decision making will be evaluated via experimentation in a computer-based environment. The central challenge of the education program is to develop and evaluate techniques and technologies to support learning about when and how to improvise in emergency response. The first goal of the educational program is to provide training to emergency response practitioners in making, analyzing and supporting improvised decisions. The second is to introduce high school, undergraduate and graduate students to careers in the field of emergency response. The third is to enable graduate and undergraduate students to participate in the research and education programs. The fourth is to disseminate the results of both programs to research and practitioner communities and to society at large. Integration of research and teaching programs throughout the project will be achieved through the sharing of knowledge and activities both face-to-face and in a virtual community, with oversight of the work shared between the principal investigator and an external Advisory Board.The intellectual merits of this work are in applying the science of modeling to create knowledge at the intersection of cognitive science, decision making and the field of emergency management, thereby addressing the need to develop interdisciplinary approaches to managing extreme events. The resulting cognitive theory will extend existing scholarship, provide the basis for future studies and be incorporated into educational activities, the efficacy of which will be assessed as part of the research. The broader impacts of this work are in contributing to society's ability to plan for and respond to extreme events. The research program will improve understanding of when and how improvisation occurs, producing results that will be translated into educational materials for students across a wide socioeconomic range. The education program will draw on the research to engender appreciation for and interest in the field of emergency response among high school and university students in an urban setting. Finally, results of the research and education programs will be broadly disseminated to research and practitioner communities and to society at large.