An Immersive Approach to Intuitive Information Processing and Decision Making Navy SBIR FY2012.2 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2012.2 Topic No.: N122-144 Topic Title: An Immersive Approach to Intuitive Information Processing and Decision Making Proposal No.: N122-144-0295 Firm: Stottler Henke Associates, Inc. 1670 South Amphlett Blvd. Suite 310 San Mateo, California 94402 Contact: Terrance Goan Phone: (206) 545-1478 Web Site: www.stottlerhenke.com Abstract: In recent years, research in the areas of human-computer interaction and cognitive psychology have revealed major shortcomings in software systems designed to support human analysts in processing large volumes of electronic information. In some cases, technologies developed to automatically fuse information have been found to obscure the nuances required for people to adequately make sense of an emerging situation. We instead propose to focus our attention on employing new instrumentation cost-effective technologies to monitor brain activity, eye gaze, and facial expressions in order to detect initial relevance as well as changes in user intent. These observations, interpreted through models of intuition and sensemaking, will enable the proposed system to alter information displays and the human-machine interaction in ways that not only reduce cognitive load but improve decision quality by enabling users to rapidly elaborate, question, evaluate, compare, and reframe their interpretations of data. During Phase I we will devise measures of intuition and pair them with appropriate sensor technologies. We will also demonstrate through limited experiments how these measures can be used to improve the speed and effectiveness of decision making. Benefits: The proposed effort will break new ground in supporting intuitive information processing, sensemaking, and decision support. The benefits in the form of increased information processing throughput and improved decision quality will be appealing to a wide range of organizations in both the public and private sectors. The benefits of the proposed technology in high-data-load and high-risk applications (e.g., emergency management, air traffic control, commercial shipping, and crisis management) are particularly significant. Our initial focus in Phase I will be on validating the proposed methods in the context of one of the decision support applications Stottler Henke is currently readying for deployment and commercial launch. This initial integration will provide us with an efficient means of validating solution components in a low tempo environment where we can measure improvements in information processing efficiency and intuitive decision making and identify new opportunities for improvement. Subsequently we will pursue niche markets where the particular qualities of the technology can be directly tied to real payoffs. One clear opportunity is to market the proposed RapID technology to the major investment banks, which would provide them with significantly increased information processing throughput and improvements in trading decisions. Return