Team Procedures in Image Interpretation

Book excerpt: Present study was one in a series concerned with the development of effective image interpreter team techniques and organization. Ten different team procedures were compared with each other and with individual interpreters on eight performance tests based on photography from four aerial surveillance missions of World War II and four missions flown during the Korean war. Degree of cooperation and working methods were systematically varied in 80 matched teams of two or three Army image interpreters. Rights and wrongs scores were based on a consensus of either two or three team members. Three-man teams, with individuals working independently, proved consistently superior to the average individual interpreter attaining the same level of completness as the average individual with substantial increases in accuracy. On the eight-mission performance tests used in this experiment, the three-man independent teams had average accuracy scores ranging from 52% to 100% versus 12% to 39% for the average individual. Two-man independent teams also showed gains in accuracy but with reduced completeness compared with individual performance. (Author).