2006 Ccrts

This paper adopts a cognitive theory of analogy and applies it to the design of decision support systems. The approach, called structure mapping, captures the conceptual structure of a C2 problem in the graphical features of a visual display. The result is a visualization that supports decision making better than standard mappings of geospatial information. As an example we present a system designed to support weapon-target pairing for time-sensitive targeting. This C2 system in particular, and structure mapping in general, are useful because solving a problem like weapon-target pairing requires reasoning about probabilities, priorities and other parameters that are not shown in standard mappings. Thus the contribution of this paper is threefold in: (1) reviewing the theory behind our structure mapping approach; (2) presenting a system designed in accordance with this approach; (3) discussing how the same approach can be used to design intuitively informative displays for other C2 systems.