In this study, we simulated a generic mounted crew station environment and conducted an experiment to examine the workload and performance of the combined position of gunner and robotics operator. Results showed that participants' gunnery task performances degraded significantly when he had to concurrently monitor, manage, or teleoperate an unmanned ground vehicle compared to the gunnery single task condition. For the robotics tasks, participants had the lowest performance when using the semi-autonomous robot, indicating overreliance on the aided target recognition capabilities available when task load was heavy (i.e., concurrent performance of the gunnery task). Participants' perceived workload increased consistently as the concurrent task conditions became more challenging. Individual difference factors such as spatial ability and perceived attentional control were found to correlate significantly with some of the performance measures. Implications for military personnel selection were discussed.The goal of this research was to examine whether gunners in a Future Combat System (FCS) vehicle such as the Mounted Combat System (MCS) were able to effectively maintain local security (i.e., perform their gunner's tasks) while managing unmanned assets. The current FCS concept for the MCS is that it will be operated MILITARY PSYCHOLOGY,

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In this study, we simulated a military mounted environment and conducted an experiment to examine the workload and performance of the combined position of gunner and robotic operator and how individual difference factors such as perceived attentional control and spatial ability were related to the task performance. Results showed that gunner's target detection performance degraded significantly when he or she had to concurrently monitor, manage, or teleoperate an unmanned ground vehicle compared to the gunnery-single task condition. Those with higher spatial ability performed significantly better than those with lower spatial ability. Participants with higher perceived attentional control performed better on a concurrent communication task in the more challenging robotic task conditions. Participants' perceived attentional control was negatively correlated with the severity of their simulator sickness but not with their perceived workload.