Adaptive forgetting by emergent knowledge structures in socio-technical systems

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Conny Herbert Antoni; Professor Dr. Thomas Ellwart; Professor Dr.-Ing. Ingo J. Timm
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology ; Data Management, Data-Intensive Systems, Computer Science Methods in Business Informatics
• Term: from 2016 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 318341635

In the first funding phase of the SPP 1921, the interdisciplinary tandem between work, organizational and business psychology, as well as business informatics, investigated intentional forgetting as an extension of individual and system (e.g. team) information processing capacity. This expansion of capacities results from a reorganization of task-related knowledge between team members, by means of specialization. In addition, such reorganization was formally represented and successfully applied in intelligent agent simulation models. Based on memory models of psychological team research (so-called team cognitions), interdisciplinary approaches for efficiently handling increasing amounts of information were developed on an organizational level. In the second funding phase, this approach will be transferred to mixed systems of social actors and digital agents. In line with fields 4 and 5 of the DFG SPP 1921, project partners from administration and manufacturing will be supported in making intentional forgetting plannable and designable by reorganizing the distribution of knowledge in socio-digital systems. On the theoretical and empirical basis of the existing interdisciplinary forgetting model, instruments for measuring (state analysis) and formalizing socio-digital task sharing are developed with the project partners. As a result, mechanisms of intentional forgetting can be measured such that individual and system behavior, as well as reactions, can be reported (goal 1). Secondly, specific design approaches for socio-digital task sharing will be developed and tested in an interdisciplinary simulation and experiment platform. Based on various hypotheses, effects of design approaches to intentional forgetting, system behavior, and individual reactions are studied in their interaction with moderators (goal 2). Thirdly, on a tactical and strategic level, application-oriented design and development measures should contribute to the planning of intentional forgetting in socio-digital teams. Based on the state analysis and hypothesis-driven social simulation studies, these measures allow users to initiate a participative reorganization of the socio-digital system and to derive critical personal characteristics for personnel development (goal 3). In three multimethodological work packages, these project goals are investigated. Further, they are complemented by cross-tandem cooperation within the SPP. The transfer of findings, methods, and solutions into the application contexts can be used for planned forgetting of knowledge. At the same time, the findings contribute to the improvement of individual working conditions and performance optimization in socio-digital systems.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1921: Intentional Forgetting
• Co-Investigator: Dr.-Ing. Jan Ole Berndt