Capturing human cognition in cyber-security simulations with NETS

As new technologies are employed to improve cyber-security, designers often make claims that their interfaces improve usability, improve situation awareness, reduce cognitive load, or improve team cognition. However, the assessment of these claims is complex because these higher cognitive functions are often difficult to measure. This paper outlines a three human-subjects experiments, using the NETS simulation engine, to explore human cognition in simulated cyber-security environments. First, the salient features of the NETS simulator are described. Second, the three experiments are each outlined to include a description the individual cognitive measurements that were assessed. Next, a summarization of results from all three experiments will compare the important findings. This paper concludes with a discussion of key factors that should be considered when attempting to quantify differences in human cognition when presented with novel visualization approaches in a cyber-security context.