Interest: Cybersecurity Command Operations

A recent data breach investigation reported a substantial decline in incidents and confirmed breaches, largely attributable to improved operator visibility rather than a sudden increase in attention engagement or compliance. The report emphasized that “nobody wants to admit that their employees may be their weakest link in the security chain, but the fact remains that human error is an enduring cause of data breach events.” These human-origin errors were classified into three primary categories: “Misdelivery” of information to unintended recipients, “Misconfiguration” of online resources such as databases and storage services, and “Miscellaneous Error” incidents, which frequently involve exposure of personal identifying information (Verizon, 2025).

Our research program focuses on pinpointing the underlying cognitive failure points associated with these error classes and identifying viable corrective actions. Drawing on John Flach’s critique, we argue that labeling these breakdowns simply as failures of “situational awareness” is too coarse to illuminate the mechanisms at fault or guide precise intervention (Flach, 1995). Instead, we employ methods in both laboratory and applied settings that combine meaningful EEG montage data with direct behavioral observations in operational environments. In these studies, we look for auditory and visual conflicts that are likely to interfere with perception and evidence of disrupted information integration that can bias decision-making under uncertainty. We also examine contributors to mental fatigue in continuous monitoring tasks and characterize how interruptions and workload fluctuations degrade performance in high-stakes settings (Verizon, 2025).

Women performing vigilance tasks

The question motivating one phase of our work is whether women are better performers at detecting and analyzing complex signals. During the Second World War, the United States and British military relied extensively on women as radar operators for air defense, and contemporary accounts documented the critical role their performance played in saving lives by enabling early detection of enemy aircraft. Historical records and later analyses commonly describe these women as particularly effective cognitive operators, capable of sustaining attention, discriminating weak or noisy returns, and rapidly interpreting radar traces and associated data. Building on this historical evidence, we are designing and testing applied research protocols to assess sex-linked differences in sustained vigilance, signal detection, and analytic processing, with the aim of determining whether and how these differences can be leveraged to improve modern cyber and sensing operations (Alfaro, 2024).

Alpha waves

A critical component of our research involves the continuous monitoring of alpha wave activity as a neurophysiological indicator of drowsiness and attentional decline during prolonged vigilance tasks. Empirical studies consistently demonstrate that within approximately 15 to 20 minutes of sustained monitoring, individuals begin to exhibit measurable reductions in attention performance, reflected in both behavioral and neural markers. Our objective is to develop and evaluate cognitive intervention techniques that mitigate this decline by re-engaging the brain’s attentional networks. Such interventions may range from adaptive task modulation and rhythmic auditory stimulation to brief cognitive resets. Given the variability of individual neurocognitive profiles, determining effective best practices will necessarily require subject-specific experimentation and adaptive modeling.

Natural Language Translation

A related dimension of our research examines how social and linguistic dynamics within operational teams influence cognitive performance under high-stakes conditions. We explore how linguistic choices—specific words, phrasings, and interaction patterns—carry implicit meanings that reflect and shape underlying group norms, hierarchies, and emotional tone. Within command and control environments, where nested subgroups must coordinate closely, communication inefficiencies or misinterpretations can escalate small misunderstandings into systemic failures. To address this, our study employs computational linguistic analysis and psychometric assessment to translate natural language exchanges into measurable indicators of cognitive load, trust, and stress. By mapping these patterns, we aim to identify how communication structures either buffer or intensify operator strain, ultimately informing strategies to optimize both cognitive resilience and team coordination.