Mental Resilience and Cognitive Agility

The Mental Resilience and Cognitive Agility program originates from the Human Performance, Training and Education thrust of the Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare and Combating Terrorism Department, which aims at developing expeditionary warfighters that are physically, mentally and emotionally ready to deploy anywhere in the world on short notice. They will serve within their team or take on leadership roles as needed, and complete their mission efficiently and effectively under any extreme conditions.

This program has two goals: 1) develop and demonstrate advanced interface designs that expand our understanding of what sensory modalities and control interfaces best support user situational awareness and man-machine performance, and; 2) achieve mental control of fear and stress to enable heightened tactical proficiency in combat.

This program is unique in that it will address the need for scientifically validated stress-coping skills and training regimes that complement and extend the warrior ethos. Realistic immersive simulation environments will be developed to provide stress inoculation and opportunities to reinforce stress coping skills. This program will also provide man-machine interface (MMI) and human-system interface design principles that incorporate an understanding of the competing cognitive demands in the dismounted infantry environment. Battlefield information devices will be developed that expand situational awareness.

There is a strong pull from the Training and Education Command Physical Readiness Performance Office, Program Management Marine Expeditionary Rifle Squad, and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force for these simulation environments and design principles. Although it is a young program, significant progress is already being made to identify the ability of immersive environments to produce stress inoculation and to develop more congruent and intuitive MMI for teleoperated robots for enhanced situational awareness and cognitive capacity.