The document summarizes key discoveries and developments in team performance research over the past 50 years, as reflected in the journal Human Factors. It highlights eight major discoveries:
1) The importance of shared cognition and mental models for team performance.
2) Advances in measuring shared cognition, moving from post-task surveys to real-time embedded measures.
3) Improvements in team training methods that promote teamwork skills and coordination.
4) The use of synthetic task environments to study teams in controlled research settings.
5) Identification of factors that influence team effectiveness such as composition, leadership, and coordination.
6) Development of multilevel models of team effectiveness that integrate individual and team processes