Name: Adam Werner                                                                                                                                     Master’s Thesis Proposal Meeting
Date: Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Time: 10:30am
Location: J.S. Coon Building, room 148
 
Advisor:
Jamie Gorman, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)
 
Thesis Committee Members:
Jamie Gorman, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)
Bruce Walker, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)
Christopher Wiese, Ph.D. (Georgia Tech)
 
Title: Visual vs. Auditory Coupling in Dyads under Different Task Difficulty 

Abstract: Due to lack of visual or verbal (semantic) perceptual information, there are many tasks a person cannot accomplish on his or her own that require interpersonal coordination and teaming.  A person must either verbally or visually communicate with the other person who then must take action to complete the task—resulting in the two becoming coupled visually or verbally. Previous research shows that coupling between two individuals can take place verbally or visually in intentional and unintentional tasks (i.e., Richardson, Marsh, & Schmidt, 2005; Gorman, Amazeen, Crites, & Gibson, 2017). This experiment will examine this coupling process by using a two-person task where one person drives a remote controlled car but cannot see the car, and the other person gives verbal, visual, or a combination of both cues to direct the person driving the car.  This experiment will examine 24 dyads (8 per the between-subjects condition of coupling type) to evaluate the performance of different coupling methods over easy, moderate, and hard task conditions (within-subjects variable).  Based on pilot study results and previous research, I hypothesize that the visual coupling condition will have higher performance measures overall.  I also predict that the combination coupling condition will have higher performance measures as task difficulty increases.  Further pilot study results are also discussed.  The implications of these results could have tremendous applicability in training two-person teams and real-world situations in the military and civilian contexts.