Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Collaboration and teaming are critical for solving complex problems. However, little is known about how group dynamics affect teaming behaviours and, ultimately, problem-solving effectiveness. The present study aimed to validate a novel measure of the dynamics of team communication – here termed turn-taking entropy – and to investigate what aspects of those dynamics affect collaborative-problem-solving performance. Thirty-two teams of 4 were asked to complete a simulated crisis-response task in which they had to rank 15 items in order of their importance to their team’s survival (first individually and then as a team). Group responses were better than the aggregated individual responses of team members (suggesting teaming benefits), and were better when team members had task-relevant skills and knowledge. However, response quality was not significantly related to task completion time. Additionally, the proposed entropy measure appeared to capture group communication dynamics, and appeared to differentiate stable an unstable patterns of communication. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.