Cognitive Terrain Mapping: Charting a way forward in Information Operations

Authors: John Bicknell and Christian Andros

This article describes Cognitive Terrain Mapping. Currently being prototyped by the US Army, it is a versatile new capability which employs complexity science and information theory to visualize the changing cognitive states of humans within systems. The Army is interested in using the capability within its information advantage (IA) portfolio. After a brief introduction, Cognitive Terrain Mapping is explained, and a use case with benefits is presented.

[Note: Readers interested in related national security applications which synthesize complexity science, operations research principles, and Information Theory should also read The Coin of the Realm: Understanding and Predicting Relative System Behavior and Cognitive Arbitrage: Complexity, Variety and Human Cognitive States Are Related.]

Introduction

The past two years have been a watershed period for Information Operations (IO) doctrine. The Joint Staff published Joint Publication (JP) 3-04, and the military services promulgated new publications that expand on integrating Information as the 7th Warfighting Function, as discussed by LtGen Jerry Glavy and COL John Agnello on the Cognitive Crucible podcast.

While each publication has different terminology and applies information with varied techniques, tactics, and procedures, each uses information to gain tangible and reinforcing advantages. JP 3-04, for example, has an entire Guide for the Integration of Information in Joint Operations (Appendix C) in order to gain an advantage. Likewise, in Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 3-13, one such advantage is the “likely [emphasis added] psychological impact of their operations and tasks on relevant actor perceptions, attitudes, and other drivers of behavior. The inherent informational aspects of operations produce cognitive effects on threats and other foreign relevant actors, including fear, anger, or confidence.”

But how can warfighters practically integrate new informational capabilities and evaluate “likely psychological impacts?” This is a difficult proposition since military units often lack the appropriate skills and abilities to conduct detailed assessments–especially at scale. Additionally, given current methods, seasoned psychological operations practitioners and researchers question whether or not it is even possible to understand causal relationships between operations in the information environment (OIE) and desired effects. For these reasons, warfighters need new tools and techniques to better understand and engage with the information dimension. These tools must do more than simply observe the sheer volume of data or messages; they must identify key influencers and susceptible (or resistant) audiences where IO could have disproportionate effects, Cognitive Terrain Mapping is one such approach.

Cognitive Terrain Mapping

Measures of complexity–or variety–provide a lens into the cognitive state of humans who manage or participate within systems of interest. Yaneer Bar-Yam, a Cognitive Crucible podcast guest and noteworthy complexity scientist, asserts: “Information, complexity, and entropy are really kind of the same thing looking at them from slightly different perspectives.” During the same podcast episode, Prof. Bar-Yam mentions Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety, which states that all systems must be able to respond to the variety of environmental stimuli in order to survive and continue goal pursuit. Stimuli “may be actively hostile, as are those coming from an enemy, or merely irregular, as are those coming from the weather,” according to Ashby. But, what happens to the human brain during moments of excessive environmental variety or complexity?

Claude Shannon pioneered Information Theory in the 1940s. Information Theory is a mathematical representation of how efficiently and clearly information can be transmitted. Current researchers observe that information transmission is affected by factors exogenous to the medium itself–such as noise–which prevent receivers from fully understanding the original message. Moments of information overload and system noise confound human ability to orient, prioritize, decide, and then act. Such system phenomena (as individual humans and groups make up larger complex, adaptive systems) may increase cognitive vulnerabilities at certain times. Careful analyses identify exploitable influence timing opportunities based upon these cognitive vulnerabilities that result in Information Advantages.

Cognitive Terrain Mapping estimates and visualizes these changing cognitive states of target audiences. It is an IA-enabling capability that applies especially during the competition continuum phase of operations. A Cognitive Terrain Mapping dashboard uses complexity science and information theory to visualize and capitalize on opportunistic moments within complex systems based upon changes in human cognitive states. Cognitive Terrain Maps are also domain-agnostic, data-agnostic, and 100% explainable. Cognitive Terrain Maps do not have to be geographic; any data from which human events may be derived are usable. Moreover, different exploitable cognitive vulnerabilities (or states) are revealed when Cognitive Terrain Mapping is applied to different systems. For example:

• Space: Satellite orbital and maritime tracking data may be used to identify maneuvers from which [cognitive] planning and execution cycles may be inferred and future maneuvers predicted.
• Cyber: Cyber event logs identify varieties of attacks which may be used to make inferences about enemy cognitive states and BLUE/RED system vulnerabilities.
• Ad Tech 1: Bidstream data may be used to measure the complexity of mobile device usage which may be used to make inferences about the average cognitive state of target audiences.
• Ad Tech 2: Similarly, varieties of emotional states contained within social media posts may be converted into a target audience complexity measure, which may be used to engage appropriately and advantageously.
• Business: Event logs extracted from enterprise management systems contain activities which represent the cognitive states of managers and employees; these data may be used for multiple purposes such as performance coaching, organizational restructuring, and short-term teaming projects.

Use Case and Benefits

The US Army is currently prototyping a Cognitive Terrain Mapping capability which uses Global Database for Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT) data. GDELT provides a wealth of event data from worldwide news sources. Cognitive Terrain Maps fueled by GDELT data visualize the average cognitive states of system managers or participants based on global news reporting related to countries, persons of interest, multinational organizations, and even news outlets. Varieties of cooperative and conflicting events recorded within GDELT are converted into complexity measures which enable useful cognitive terrain perspectives:

1. Location-specific maps measure and compare the average cognitive states of system managers or system participants. A system manager may be a national or local government official (for example: Secretary of Agriculture, Minister of Transportation, or Tribal Elder) who has an ongoing goal pursuit agenda. System participants include local populations which are experiencing the changing system dynamics.
2. Foreign actor energy expenditure maps depict how, where, and when foreign countries have operated globally or regionally. Larger varieties of events involving a foreign actor imply more management persistence and effort. Cognitive heatmap movies tell a long-term, generational story of foreign influence.
3. News outlet cognitive maps compare global, regional, or local editorial policies. Over time, changes in editorial policy may indicate changes in news outlet ownership or political power. New target audiences may be defined by clustering outlets with similar bias or news coverage, as evidenced by similar cognitive trends.

Cognitive Terrain Mapping provides a wide array of decision support to IO planners, analysts, and operators. It can highlight moments of system vulnerability (and also resilience) to direct, prioritize, and synchronize influence activities. These measures can directly enable IA by providing metrics to determine the “relative cognitive state” of a target audience across a number of relevant subject areas. These powerful measures enable planners to capitalize on system disparities or imbalances to maximize effects, focus effort, and create relative advantage. Additionally, these disparities and imbalances can be tracked over time.

Cognitive Terrain Mapping also creates quantitative metrics and other inputs to help commanders assess dynamic threats, opportunities, and vulnerabilities within the IE. Such inputs help form a Common Operational Picture (COP) to display relevant information within a commander’s area of interest tailored to the user’s requirements and based on common data and information shared by more than one command. The COP helps commanders at all echelons achieve shared situational understanding to enable planning, preparation, execution, and assessments.

These benefits gain greater efficiencies and promote convergence, an outcome created by the concerted employment of capabilities from multiple domains and echelons against combinations of decisive points in any domain to create effects against a system, formation, decision maker, or in a specific geographic area. Its utility derives from understanding the interdependent relationships among capabilities from different domains and combining those capabilities in surprising, effective tactics that accrue advantages over time.

Conclusion

By employing an innovative technology like Cognitive Terrain Mapping, modern warfighters can gain greater situational awareness, maximize and synchronize efforts, and reduce risk. This employment will highlight adversary activity, target vulnerabilities and create desired effects–all of which help the commander to gain IA.

About the Authors

John Bicknell is the CEO and Founder of More Cowbell Unlimited. A national security thought leader and passionate analytics visionary, he has written extensively on national security matters related to information warfare, critical infrastructure defense, and space situational awareness. Before retiring from the United States Marine Corps in 2010 as a Lieutenant Colonel, John served worldwide, most notably in Afghanistan and at the Pentagon. He led enterprise-level process intensive human resources supply chain projects designed to discover inefficiencies, architect solutions, and re-purpose manpower savings. In his corporate career, he operationalized an Analytics Center of Excellence for a large EdTech firm, among other accomplishments. John is Vice President for the Information Professionals Association and host of The Cognitive Crucible podcast. His Master’s degree from the Naval Postgraduate School emphasizes econometrics and operations research.

Christian Andros recently retired from the Department of the Navy after 32 years of service. An intelligence officer, he has a background in Kinetic and Non-Kinetic Targeting, Information Operations and Intelligence Analysis. His most recent position was Director of Intelligence at the Marine Corps Information Operations Center (MCIOC). He now serves as an instructor for the Information Environment Advanced Analysis Course.