Latent Semantic Analysis for Career Field Analysis and Information Operations

Darrell Laham, Winston Bennett, and Marcia Derr

Abstract

This paper reviews two current Air Force Research Laboratory / Human Effectiveness Directorate (AFRL/HEA) efforts that are maturing Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) tools for the Air Force. The first effort is developing new LSA-based agent software that helps decision makers to identify required job knowledge, determine which members of the workforce have the knowledge, pinpoint needed retraining content, and maximize training and retraining efficiency. Modern organizations are increasingly faced with rapid changes in technology and missions and need constantly changing mixes of competencies and skills. Assembling personnel with the right knowledge and experience for a task is especially difficult when there are few experts, unfamiliar devices, redefined goals, and short lead-times for training and deployment. LSA is being used to analyze course content and materials from current training pipelines and to identify appropriate places in alternative structures where that content can be reused. This saves time for training developers since the preexisting content has already been validated as a part of its earlier application.

AFRL/HEA's second research effort involves a demonstration of a combined speech-to-text and LSA-based software agent for embedding automatic, continuous, and cumulative analysis of verbal interactions in individual and team operational environments. The agent will systematically parse and evaluate verbal communication to identify critical information and content required of many of today's AF operators. LSA is promising new technology that has significant potential for assisting operators in the performance of their tasks because it can "listen" and in almost real-time evaluate free-form verbal communication from a variety of sources and match content to stored language dictionaries. One application of this technology being explored is tracking and scoring the tactical communications that occur between the members of a four-ship air combat flight and their weapons director to identify areas of training need and as an additional tool for assessing the efficacy of DMT scenarios and missions.

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