Characterizing Human Perception of Emergent Swarm Behaviors

Abstract

Human swarm interaction (HSI) involves operators gathering information about a swarm’s state as it evolves, and using it to make informed decisions on how to influence the collective behavior of the swarm. In order to determine the proper input, an operator must have an accurate representation and understanding of the current swarm state, including what emergent behavior is currently happening. In this paper, we investigate how human operators perceive three types of common, emergent swarm behaviors: rendezvous, flocking, and dispersion. Particularly, we investigate how recognition of these behaviors differ from each other in the presence of background noise. Our results show that, while participants were good at recognizing all behaviors, there are indeed differences between the three, with rendezvous being easier to recognize than flocking or dispersion. Furthermore, differences in recognition are also affected by viewing time for flocking. Feedback from participants was also especially insightful for understanding how participants went about recognizing behaviors—allowing for potential avenues of research in future studies.