Theoretical underpinning of interactive team cognition

Teams are a special kind of group, one that has members who play heterogeneous but interdependent roles to work toward common objectives (Salas, Dickinson, Converse, & Tannenbaum, 1992). Thus a typing pool of individuals doing the same task, each independently, is a small group that can be contrasted with a surgical team (nurse, surgeon, and anesthesiologist) who each have distinct although interdependent roles. Furthermore, teams increasingly perform cognitive tasks such as planning, decision making, designing, assessing situations, and solving problems. We label this cognitive activity of teams “team cognition.�? The purpose of this chapter is to describe one perspective on team cognition, interactive team cognition (ITC), and its theoretical underpinnings.