{ "componentChunkName": "component---src-templates-publication-template-tsx", "path": "/publications/overcoming-cognition-limiting-heuristics-in-mission-planning", "result": {"data":{"markdownRemark":{"html":"
\n

TL;DR: Giving experienced battalion commanders more varied intelligence did not broaden the mission actions they envisioned in this exploratory study. Their established planning rubrics shaped what they noticed and prioritized, suggesting that deliberate divergent-thinking prompts may be more useful than simply adding information.

\n
\n

When More Information Does Not Broaden the Plan

\n

Military planners rarely have complete information or unlimited time. Intelligence products help commanders manage that uncertainty by emphasizing the enemy's \"most likely\" and \"most dangerous\" courses of action. Those labels are useful, but they may also narrow attention around two expected futures while less familiar threats remain outside the plan.

\n

This is one form of bounded rationality: decisions are constrained by time, incomplete information, and the limits of human cognition. A related heuristic is anchoring, or relying too heavily on information that frames an initial judgment. The report's featured framework, adapted from Herbert Simon's model, shows how these constraints can combine. The study did not measure anchoring directly; it tested a more practical question: would broader intelligence inputs help commanders envision a wider range of mission-relevant actions during hasty planning?

\n

The intuitive answer was yes. The workshop results pointed elsewhere.

\n

A Tactical Exercise Built Around Envisioning

\n

We developed a scenario-based tactical envisioning (SBTE) exercise around a fictitious offensive mission. Six active-duty Army lieutenant colonels, all serving as battalion commanders in brigade combat teams, participated across two workshop sessions. Each commander received one of three versions of the same scenario:

\n\n

Commanders had 60 minutes to review their packet and list as many guidance items, planning considerations, and anticipated staff actions as possible. Afterward, they joined a 20-minute focus group about how they processed the scenario.

\n

We treated each distinct item as an envisioned mission action (EMA), a descriptive proxy for how broadly a commander explored the problem. Two reviewers independently coded the actions into the Army's six warfighting functions: command and control, intelligence, movement and maneuver, fires, protection, and sustainment. The reviewers then reconciled disagreements. The framework captured both the number of actions and where commanders directed their attention; it did not evaluate whether a particular distribution was optimal.

\n

The Information Packets Were Not the Main Driver

\n

Broader information did not produce longer lists. The two commanders in the low-information condition generated 55 and 88 EMAs, averaging 71.5. The current-information pair generated 35 and 32, averaging 33.5, while the high-information pair generated 46 and 44, averaging 45.0.

\n

With only two commanders per condition, these differences cannot establish an effect or rule out individual writing styles. Even so, the direction of the pattern ran against the original hypothesis: the commanders who received the least information listed the most actions.

\n

The focus groups helped explain what the counts alone could not. All six commanders reported using a structured planning rubric learned through professional military education and refined through operational experience. Regardless of packet, they consistently prioritized higher-headquarters mission intent and terrain and/or weather. The novel cues added to the high-information condition were not prominent in their written responses or later discussion.

\n

The Rubric Was Both Scaffold and Filter

\n

The commanders' rubrics were not simply flaws. Under time pressure, they supplied a dependable structure organized around mission intent, key tasks, end state, and warfighting functions. The similarity across participants suggests that professional military education had created durable, mission-focused planning habits.

\n

The same stability may also have filtered the scenario. All four commanders who saw an explicitly labeled most dangerous enemy course of action centered their planning on it, a pattern we interpret as possibly reflecting a shared risk-mitigation heuristic. Meanwhile, movement and maneuver received the most consistent attention, averaging 15.2 actions per commander. Fires, protection, and sustainment averaged 4.0, 4.2, and 3.5 actions, respectively.

\n

These descriptive patterns do not show that any commander planned poorly, or that one balance of warfighting functions is best. They show which structures remained influential when the amount and variety of intelligence changed.

\n

Creating Space for Deliberate Divergence

\n

The findings suggest that adding more cues may be insufficient when new information must pass through a familiar planning architecture. A more direct intervention would add a brief divergent-thinking step after a commander drafts initial guidance: reframe the problem, consider a low-probability but high-consequence event, or generate one option that falls outside the usual rubric.

\n

The SBTE provides a controlled setting in which professional military education programs could test prompts like these. It can also support reflection by making a commander's planning emphasis visible through EMA and warfighting-function coding. Both uses remain proposals. The exercise is a proof-of-concept research and training platform, not a validated measure of planning quality or a demonstrated way to improve operational performance.

\n

What This Proof of Concept Cannot Show

\n

The data came from six relatively similar commanders during a one-month collection window, so the findings are exploratory and not statistically generalizable. EMA counts may capture verbosity as well as cognitive breadth, no formal interrater-reliability coefficient was calculated, and the study did not score the quality or adaptability of the actions. Because course-of-action labels and novel threat cues were layered together, the design also cannot separate anchoring from the effects of information richness.

\n

Larger studies could test the exercise with more commanders, structured response sheets, expert judgments of planning quality, and experimental prompts that isolate specific mechanisms. For now, the clearest result is bounded: in these workshops, established planning frameworks appeared to shape tactical envisioning more than additional intelligence did.

\n

Full Citation

\n

Stothart, C., Stratmoen, E., Ejiogu, K., Maue, B., Evans, T., Karas, M., Sebok, A., Dermody, M., & Blair, M. (2025). Overcoming cognition-limiting heuristics in mission planning (ARI TR 1471). U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences.

","tableOfContents":"","frontmatter":{"title":"Overcoming Cognition-Limiting Heuristics in Mission Planning","description":"An exploratory Army study found that six battalion commanders' established planning rubrics shaped what they envisioned more than the amount and variety of intelligence they received.","featuredImage":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"constrained","placeholder":{"fallback":"data:image/png;base64,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"},"images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/d45200985f5c6f177b7cfc431346bc78/87926/bounded-rationality-mission-planning.png","srcSet":"/static/d45200985f5c6f177b7cfc431346bc78/a3fa1/bounded-rationality-mission-planning.png 350w,\n/static/d45200985f5c6f177b7cfc431346bc78/bc3b9/bounded-rationality-mission-planning.png 700w,\n/static/d45200985f5c6f177b7cfc431346bc78/87926/bounded-rationality-mission-planning.png 1400w","sizes":"(min-width: 1400px) 1400px, 100vw"},"sources":[{"srcSet":"/static/d45200985f5c6f177b7cfc431346bc78/26a00/bounded-rationality-mission-planning.webp 350w,\n/static/d45200985f5c6f177b7cfc431346bc78/f23f0/bounded-rationality-mission-planning.webp 700w,\n/static/d45200985f5c6f177b7cfc431346bc78/2c2d0/bounded-rationality-mission-planning.webp 1400w","type":"image/webp","sizes":"(min-width: 1400px) 1400px, 100vw"}]},"width":1400,"height":788}}}}},"allStothartPublicationsJson":{"nodes":[{"title":"Overcoming Cognition-Limiting Heuristics in Mission Planning","summaryPath":"/publications/overcoming-cognition-limiting-heuristics-in-mission-planning","reportNumber":"ARI TR 1471","year":2025,"publisher":"U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences","publisherUrl":"https://www.dtic.mil/document;accessionNumber=AD1346348;type=DTICTR","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/399721342_Overcoming_Cognition-Limiting_Heuristics_in_Mission_Planning","podcast":null},{"title":"Thinking-in-Time","summaryPath":"/publications/developing-thinking-in-time-skills","reportNumber":"ARI-SSSR 2024-31","year":2024,"publisher":"U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences","publisherUrl":"https://www.dtic.mil/document;accessionNumber=AD1306281;type=DTICTR","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394451644_Thinking_in_Time_A_Scenario-Based_Developmental_Method_for_Army_Officers","podcast":null},{"title":"Active Inference","summaryPath":"/publications/active-inference-decision-making-uncertainty","reportNumber":"Scientific Report 2024-09","year":2024,"publisher":"U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences","publisherUrl":"https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/html/trecms/AD1226410/index.html","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394451646_Active_Inference_A_Competency_for_Making_Decisions_in_Uncertain_Situations","podcast":null},{"title":"Active Listening Skills Training","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":"Scientific Report 2024-18","year":2024,"publisher":"U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences","publisherUrl":"https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/html/trecms/AD1230849/index.html","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394451827_Active_Listening_Skills_Training_Improving_Officer-_Soldier_Relationships_in_Developmental_Counseling","podcast":null},{"title":"Can Artificial Intelligence Systems Improve Information-Gathering Efficiency in Army Mission Command Processes?","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":"Technical Report 1382","year":2020,"publisher":"U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences","publisherUrl":"https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD1107156","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344405669_Can_Artificial_Intelligence_Systems_Improve_Information-Gathering_Efficiency_in_Army_Mission_Command_Processes","podcast":null},{"title":"Productive Discourse to Enhance Army Strategic Planning","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":"Technical Report 1384","year":2020,"publisher":"U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences","publisherUrl":"https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD1107160","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344405821_Productive_Discourse_to_Enhance_Army_Strategic_Planning","podcast":null},{"title":"Human Factors Guidelines to Develop Educational Tip Cards for Aging Road Users","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":"BDV30 977-15","year":2017,"publisher":"Florida Department of Transportation","publisherUrl":null,"downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319448916_Human_Factors_Guidelines_to_Develop_Educational_Tip_Cards_for_Aging_Road_Users","podcast":null},{"title":"Driving Simulator Studies of the Effectiveness of Countermeasures to Prevent Wrong-Way Crashes","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":"BDV30-977-10","year":2015,"publisher":"Florida Department of Transportation","publisherUrl":null,"downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319448611_Driving_Simulator_Studies_of_the_Effectiveness_of_Countermeasures_to_Prevent_Wrong-Way_Crashes_BDV30-977-10","podcast":null},{"title":"Aging Road User Studies of Intersection Safety","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":"BDV30 TWO 977-04","year":2014,"publisher":"Florida Department of Transportation","publisherUrl":null,"downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319448724_Aging_Road_Studies_of_Intersection_Safety_BDV30_TWO_977-04","podcast":null},{"title":"Aging Road User, Bicyclist, and Pedestrian Safety","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":"BDK83 977-15","year":2013,"publisher":"Florida Department of Transportation","publisherUrl":null,"downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319448505_Aging_Road_User_Bicyclist_and_Pedestrian_Safety_Effective_Bicycling_Signs_and_Preventing_Left-Turn_Crashes_BDK83_977-15","podcast":null},{"title":"Aging Driver and Pedestrian Safety","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":"BDK83 977-12","year":2012,"publisher":"Florida Department of Transportation","publisherUrl":null,"downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319448395_Aging_Driver_and_Pedestrian_Safety_Parking_Lot_Hazards_Study_BDK83_977-12","podcast":null},{"title":"Aging Driver and Pedestrian Safety","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":"BDK83 977-09","year":2011,"publisher":"Florida Department of Transportation","publisherUrl":null,"downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281094963_Aging_Driver_and_Pedestrian_Safety_Human_Factors_Studies_BDK83_977-09","podcast":null},{"title":"Typicality Modulates the Visual Awareness of Objects","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2022,"publisher":"consciousness and cognition","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2022.103314","downloadUrl":null,"podcast":null},{"title":"\"Satisfaction\" in Search","summaryPath":"/publications/satisfaction-in-search-expectations-predict-errors","reportNumber":null,"year":2019,"publisher":"attention perception and psychophysics","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-019-01790-9","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333433720_Satisfaction_in_Search_Individuals'_Own_Search_Expectations_Predict_Their_Errors_in_Multiple-Target_Search","podcast":null},{"title":"What to Where","summaryPath":"/publications/what-to-where-right-attention-set-wrong-location","reportNumber":null,"year":2019,"publisher":"perception","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0301006619854302","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333224436_What_to_Where_The_Right_Attention_Set_for_the_Wrong_Location","podcast":null},{"title":"Semantic Associations Do Not Modulate the Visual Awareness of Objects","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2019,"publisher":"the quarterly journal of experimental psychology","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021818811411","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328481618_Semantic_associations_do_not_modulate_the_visual_awareness_of_objects","podcast":null},{"title":"Predictors of Attitudes Towards Autonomous Vehicles","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2018,"publisher":"frontiers in psychology","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02589","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329806164_Predictors_of_Attitudes_Toward_Autonomous_Vehicles_The_Roles_of_Age_Gender_Prior_Knowledge_and_Personality","podcast":null},{"title":"Attention Capture, Processing Speed, and Inattentional Blindness","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2018,"publisher":"acta psychologica","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.07.005","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326356485_Attention_Capture_Processing_Speed_and_Inattentional_Blindness","podcast":null},{"title":"Satisfaction in Motion","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2018,"publisher":"psychonomic bulletin and review","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1300-1","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316441769_Satisfaction_in_motion_Subsequent_search_misses_are_more_likely_in_moving_search_displays","podcast":null},{"title":"The Costs (or Benefits) Associated with Attended Objects Do Little to Influence Inattentional Blindness","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2017,"publisher":"acta psychologica","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2016.12.012","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311799778_The_costs_or_benefits_associated_with_attended_objects_do_little_to_influence_inattentional_blindness","podcast":null},{"title":"Clarifying the Role of Target Similarity, Task Relevance and Feature-Based Suppression During Sustained Inattentional Blindness","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2016,"publisher":"journal of vision","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1167/16.15.13","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311734195_Clarifying_the_role_of_target_similarity_task_relevance_and_feature-based_suppression_during_sustained_inattentional_blindness","podcast":null},{"title":"Using Mechanical Turk to Assess the Effects of Age and Spatial Proximity on Inattentional Blindness","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2015,"publisher":"collabra","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.26","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282425519_Using_Mechanical_Turk_to_Assess_the_Effects_of_Age_and_Spatial_Proximity_on_Inattentional_Blindness","podcast":null},{"title":"The Attentional Cost of Receiving a Cell Phone Notification","summaryPath":"/publications/attentional-cost-cell-phone-notification","reportNumber":null,"year":2015,"publisher":"journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000100","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279457726_The_Attentional_Cost_of_Receiving_a_Cell_Phone_Notification","podcast":"https://open.spotify.com/episode/72ClqMYneG8qwNiIpc9BnS?si=0J6oZaOiSDmc_DIzC_wxRQ"},{"title":"Is the Effect of Aerobic Exercise on Cognition a Placebo Effect?","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2014,"publisher":"PLOS ONE","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0109557","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266625747_Is_the_Effect_of_Aerobic_Exercise_on_Cognition_a_Placebo_Effect","podcast":null},{"title":"The Pervasive Problem with Placebos in Psychology","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2013,"publisher":"perspectives on psychological science","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691613491271","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258179760_The_Pervasive_Problem_With_Placebos_in_Psychology_Why_Active_Control_Groups_Are_Not_Sufficient_to_Rule_Out_Placebo_Effects","podcast":null},{"title":"Improving the Safety of Aging Road Users","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2013,"publisher":"gerontology","publisherUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1159/000354212","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256289389_Improving_the_Safety_of_Aging_Road_Users_A_Mini-Review","podcast":null},{"title":"Age Effects on Inattentional Blindness","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2016,"publisher":"Springer International Publishing","publisherUrl":null,"downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304189658_Age_Effects_on_Inattentional_Blindness_Implications_for_Driving","podcast":null},{"title":"Ensuring the Safety and Accessibility of Transportation for an Aging Population","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2016,"publisher":"Springer International Publishing","publisherUrl":null,"downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304189962_Ensuring_the_Safety_and_Accessibility_of_Transportation_for_an_Aging_Population","podcast":null},{"title":"Active Listening Learning Resource","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":"Research Product 2023-04","year":2023,"publisher":"U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences","publisherUrl":"https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD1189571","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394451659_Active_Listening_Learning_Resource_Self-Paced_Learning_Modules_to_Improve_Your_Ability_to_Communicate_Effectively","podcast":null},{"title":"Strategies for Stimulating Discussion Handbook","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":"Research Product 2019-02","year":2019,"publisher":"U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences","publisherUrl":"https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD1067297","downloadUrl":"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394451664_Strategies_for_Stimulating_Discussion","podcast":null},{"title":"Using AI to Assist Commanders with Complex Decision-Making","summaryPath":null,"reportNumber":null,"year":2018,"publisher":"Author Published","publisherUrl":null,"downloadUrl":null,"podcast":null}]}},"pageContext":{"id":"8bd1a57d-2481-50da-b04a-03861a8f33ca","slug":"overcoming-cognition-limiting-heuristics-in-mission-planning","markdownPath":"/publications/overcoming-cognition-limiting-heuristics-in-mission-planning/index.md","seo":{"type":"article","title":"Overcoming Cognition-Limiting Heuristics in Mission Planning","description":"An exploratory Army study found that six battalion commanders' established planning rubrics shaped what they envisioned more than the amount and variety of intelligence they received.","image":"/static/d45200985f5c6f177b7cfc431346bc78/bounded-rationality-mission-planning.png","imageAlt":"Preview image for Overcoming Cognition-Limiting Heuristics in Mission Planning","imageWidth":1672,"imageHeight":941}}}, "staticQueryHashes": ["3600524341"]}