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Written
Testimony of Stephen Zaccaro, Ph.D.
on
behalf of the
American
Psychological Association
Submitted to the
United
States Senate
Committee
on Appropriations
Subcommittee
on Defense
The
Honorable Daniel K. Inouye, Chairman
Fiscal
Year 2003 Appropriations for the
Department
of Defense
(Army
Research Institute, Office of Naval Research and
Air Force Office of Scientific Research)
June 12, 2002

Dr.
Stephen Zaccaro,
Professor
of Psychology at George Mason University
Conflict is, and will remain, essentially a human
activity in which man’s virtues of judgment, discipline and courage –
the moral component of fighting power – will endure…It is difficult to
imagine military operations that will not ultimately be determined through
physical control of people, resources and terrain – by
people…Implicit, is the enduring need for well-trained, well-equipped
and adequately rewarded soldiers.New
technologies will, however, pose significant challenges to the art of
soldiering: they will increase the soldier’s influence in the
battlespace over far greater ranges, and herald radical changes in the
conduct, structures, capability and ways of command. Information and communication technologies will increase his
tempo and velocity of operation by enhancing support to his
decision-making cycle. Systems
should be designed to enable the soldier to cope with the considerable
stress of continuous, 24-hour, high-tempo operations, facilitated by
multi-spectral, all-weather sensors.
However, technology will not substitute human intent or the
decision of the commander. There
will be a need to harness information-age technologies, such that data
does not overcome wisdom in the battlespace, and that real leadership –
that which makes men fight – will be amplified by new technology.
Essential will be the need to adapt the selection, development and
training of leaders and soldiers to ensure that they possess new skills
and aptitudes to face these challenges.
NATO RTO-TR-8, Land Operations in the Year 2020
Mr.
Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I’m Dr. Stephen Zaccaro, Professor
of Psychology at George Mason University, and a researcher who studies
leadership, leader development and team effectiveness in military contexts.
I am submitting testimony on behalf of the American Psychological
Association (APA), a scientific and professional organization of more than
155,000 psychologists and affiliates. Although
I am sure you are aware of the large number of psychologists providing clinical
services to our military members here and abroad, you may be less familiar
with the extraordinary range of research conducted
by psychological scientists within the Department of Defense.
Our behavioral researchers work on issues critical to national defense,
particularly with support from the Army Research Institute (ARI), the Office of
Naval Research (ONR), and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).
I would like to address the proposed Fiscal Year 2003 research budgets
for these three military laboratories within the context of the larger
Department of Defense Science and Technology budget.
Department
of Defense (DoD) Research Budget
APA
joins the Coalition for National Security Research (CNSR), a group of over 40
scientific associations and universities, in urging the Subcommittee to
provide DoD with $11 billion for 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 level research in Fiscal
Year 2003 (or 3 percent of the overall department budget).
This figure also is in line with the recommendation of the independent
Defense Science Board, the Quadrennial Defense Review, and the House and
Senate Armed Services Committees.
As our nation rises to meet the challenges of a new century, including multiple,
asymmetric threats and increased demand for homeland defense and infrastructure
protection, enhanced battlespace awareness and warfighter protection are
absolutely critical. Our ability to
both foresee and immediately adapt to changing security environments will become
only more vital over the next several decades. Accordingly,
DoD must support basic Science and
Technology (S&T) research on both the near-term readiness and modernization
needs of the department and on the long-term future needs of the warfighter.
Despite substantial appreciation for the importance of DoD S&T programs on
Capitol Hill, and within independent defense science organizations such as the
Defense Science Board (DSB), total research within DoD has declined in constant
dollars during the last decade. This
decline poses a real threat to America’s ability to maintain its competitive
edge at a time when we can least afford it.
APA, CNSR and our colleagues within the science and defense communities
recommend funding the DoD Science and Technology Program at a level of at least
$11 billion in Fiscal Year 2003 in order to maintain global superiority in an
ever-changing national security environment.
We strongly urge the Committee to direct a small portion of proposed
increases for national security activities to the core S&T research accounts
to achieve the $11 billion funding target.
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Behavioral
Research within the Military Service Labs
In
August, 2000 the Department of Defense met a congressional mandate to develop
a Report to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Behavioral,
Cognitive and Social Science Research in the Military.
The Senate requested this evaluation due to concern over the continuing
erosion of DoD’s support for research on individual and group performance,
leadership, communication, human-machine interfaces, and decision-making.
In responding to the Committee’s request, the Department found that
“the requirements for maintaining strong DoD support for behavioral,
cognitive and social science research capability are compelling” and that
“this area of military research has historically been extremely
productive” with “particularly high” return on investment and “high
operational impact.” Given
such strong DoD support, APA encourages the Committee to provide, at minimum,
increases at the level of inflation for behavioral science programs within the
three Service research laboratories.
Within
DoD, the military service laboratories provide a stable, mission-oriented focus
for science and technology, conducting and ponsoring basic (6.1),
applied/exploratory development (6.2) and advanced development (6.3) research.
These three levels of research are roughly parallel to the military’s
need to be able to win a current war (through products in advanced development)
while concurrently preparing for the next war (with technology “in the
works”) and the war after next (by taking advantage of ideas emerging from
basic research). Our past
investment in basic research in particular is responsible for the dramatic
increases we have seen in our military capabilities – and yet basic research
continues to be a target for cuts and elimination. Especially at the 6.1 and 6.2
levels, research programs which are eliminated from the mission labs as
cost-cutting measures are extremely unlikely to be picked up by industry, which
focuses on short-term, profit-driven product development.
Once the expertise is gone, there is absolutely no way to “catch up”
when defense mission needs for critical human-oriented research develop.
As DoD noted in its own Report to the Senate Appropriations Committee:
“Military
knowledge needs are not sufficiently like the needs of the private sector that
retooling behavioral, cognitive and social science research carried out for
other purposes can be expected to substitute for service-supported research,
development, testing, and evaluation…our choice, therefore, is between paying
for it ourselves and not having it.”
The
Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI)
ARI
works to build the ultimate smart weapon: the American soldier.
ARI was established to conduct personnel and behavioral research on such
topics as minority and general recruitment; personnel testing and evaluation;
training and retraining; and attrition. ARI
is the focal point and principal source of expertise for all the military
services in leadership research, an
area especially critical to the success of the military as future war-fighting
and peace-keeping missions demand more rapid adaptation to changing conditions,
more skill diversity in units, increased information-processing from multiple
sources, and increased interaction with semi-autonomous systems.
Behavioral scientists within ARI are working to help the armed forces
better identify, nurture and train leaders.
One effort underway is designed to help the Army identify those soldiers
who will be most successful meeting 21st century noncommissioned
officer job demands, thus strengthening the backbone of the service—the NCO
corps.
Another line of research at ARI focuses on optimizing
cognitive readiness under combat conditions, by developing methods to
predict and mitigate the effects of stressors (such as information load and
uncertainty, workload, social isolation, fatigue, and danger) on performance.
As the Army moves towards its goal of becoming the Objective Force (or
the Army of the future: lighter, faster and more mobile), psychological
researchers will play a vital role in helping maximize soldier performance
through an understanding of cognitive, perceptual and social factors.
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The
Office of Naval Research (ONR)
The
Cognitive and Neural Sciences Division (CNS) of ONR supports research to
increase the understanding of complex cognitive skills in humans; aid in the
development and improvement of machine vision; improve human factors engineering
in new technologies; and advance the design of robotics systems.
An example of CNS-supported research is the division’s long-term
investment in artificial intelligence research.
This research has led to many useful products, including software that
enables the use of “embedded
training.” Many of the
Navy’s operational tasks, such as recognizing and responding to threats,
require complex interactions with sophisticated, computer-based systems.
Embedded training allows shipboard personnel to develop and refine
critical skills by practicing simulated exercises on their own workstations.
Once developed, embedded training software can be loaded onto specified
computer systems and delivered wherever and however it is needed.
The
Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
AFOSR
behavioral scientists are responsible for developing the products which flow
from manpower, personnel, and training and crew technology research in the Air
Force, products which are relevant to an enormous number of acknowledged Air
Force mission needs ranging from weapons design, to improvements in simulator
technology, to improving crew survivability in combat, to faster, more powerful
and less expensive training regimens.
As a
result of recent cuts to the Air Force behavioral research budget, for example,
the world's premier organization devoted to personnel selection and
classification (formerly housed at Brooks Air Force Base) no longer exists.
This has a direct, negative impact on the Air Force's and other services'
ability to efficiently identify and assign personnel (especially pilots).
Similarly, reductions in support for applied research in human factors
have resulted in an inability to fully enhance human factors modeling
capabilities, which are essential for determining human-system requirements
early in system concept development, when the most impact can be made in terms
of manpower and cost savings. For
example, although engineers know how to build cockpit display systems and night
goggles so that they are structurally sound, psychologists know how to design
them so that people can use them safely and effectively.
Summary
On
behalf of APA, I would like to express my appreciation for this opportunity to
present testimony before the Subcommittee.
Clearly, psychological scientists address a broad range of important
issues and problems vital to our national security, with expertise in
understanding and optimizing cognitive functioning, perceptual awareness,
complex decision-making, stress resilience, and human-systems interactions.
We urge you to support the men and women on the front lines by supporting
the human-oriented research within the laboratories and universities.
Below
is suggested appropriations report language which would encourage the Department
of Defense to fully fund its behavioral research programs within the military
laboratories:
Department
of Defense
Behavioral
Research in the Military Service Laboratories
The
Committee recognizes that psychological scientists address a broad range of
important issues and problems vital to our national security through the three
military research laboratories: the Air Force Office of Scientific Research,
the Army Research Institute, and the Office of Naval Research.
Given the increasingly complex demands on our military personnel,
psychological research on leadership, decision-making under stress, cognitive
readiness, training, and human-technology interactions have become even more
mission-critical, and the Committee strongly encourages the service
laboratories to fully fund their behavioral research programs.
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