Advanced Technologies in Mental Training: An Emphasis on Decision-Making Enhancement Under Pressure

During combat, soldiers make crucial decisions that have life consequences. In many cases, combat decisions are made under time pressure, demanding conditions and dynamic and complex situations. To reduce decisional errors, expert soldiers – combat soldiers who have attained a very high level of combat skills – rely on knowledge-based structures (i.e., schemas). Specifically, they utilize their perceptual-cognitive system to anticipate upcoming events. This perceptual-cognitive process results in time benefits affording additional vital milliseconds for securing appropriate decision making. Not surprisingly, innovative technologies were developed to target these perceptual-cognitive processes (e.g., visual search, targets discrimination, focal point, etc). The purpose of this session is to (1) elaborate on the perceptual-cognitive system functions under pressure, and (2) introduce various advanced technologies that may be used to facilitate decision making in combat contexts.