Multi-agency groups are brought together to make strategic decisions in response to major incident emergencies. Here, we investigated decision-making processes in 18 multi-agency groups who were video recorded while engaged in simulated major incident emergencies involving a potential need to evacuate individuals from the location of the incident. Three general categories of decision-making activity were used to code the videos: situation assessment (SA), plan formulation (PF) and plan execution (PE). Analysis of the transitions between these decision-making activities showed that there were marked between-group departures from normative models of decision-making, which predict an orderly transition from SA to PF and then from PF to PE. These departures appeared to reflect between-group differences in the tendency to explore information (evident in reciprocal transitions between SA and PF) or exploit information (apparent in transitions to and from SA and PF to PE). Moreover, the tendency to explore but not exploit information was associated with the number of transitions to critical decisions (i.e. to evacuate individuals from the location of the incident).

中文翻译：

---

群体决策中探索和利用的变化：来自重大突发事件的沉浸式模拟的证据

多机构小组聚集在一起，为应对重大突发事件做出战略决策。在这里，我们调查了 18 个多机构小组的决策过程，这些小组在模拟重大事件紧急情况时被录像，这些紧急事件涉及可能需要将人员从事件地点撤离。三个一般类别的决策活动用于对视频进行编码：情况评估 (SA)、计划制定 (PF) 和计划执行 (PE)。对这些决策活动之间转换的分析表明，组间明显偏离了决策的规范模型，该模型预测了从 SA 到 PF，然后从 PF 到 PE 的有序过渡。这些偏离似乎反映了探索信息（在 SA 和 PF 之间的相互转换中很明显）或利用信息（在 SA 和 PF 到 PE 之间的转换中明显）的群体间差异。此外，探索而不是利用信息的趋势与向关键决策（即从事故地点撤离个人）的转变次数相关联。