UNCLASSIFIED

 

 

COVER PAGE

Solicitation Number:                         NRO 000-02-R-0008

Name and address of Offeror :MindTel, LLC.

                        111 College Place 2-212

                        Syracuse, NY. 13210

Proposal Title:   Optimizing ‘Mind in the Loop” Intelligence -

                        Methods for Perceptually Enhanced Human Interaction with Information:

                        The Perceptualization Environment

Area of Interest:   New Processing Methods

Duration of Effort:                        9 Months

Points of Contact: Dave Warner, MD, PhD

Medical Neuroscientist

 Dir. Medical Intelligence

davew@mindtel.com

 (858) 759-8808 phone, fax(858) 759-8807

 

NRO Director’s Innovation Initiative

BAA 000-02-R-0008

 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

MindTel

 

OPTIMIZING “MIND IN THE LOOP” INTELLIGENCE

 

Innovative Methods for Enhanced Perceptual Modulation of Human Interaction with Information in Perceptualization Environments

 

In recent years, the technological capacities of the National Reconnaissance Office to access and collect diverse information have increased substantially. These efforts are still insufficient to meet our emerging national security concerns, particularly in this time of growing concern over new forms warfare and the atrocious threat of biological and chemical weapons being used as a means of homeland assault. There is need for even greater capacities to process gathered intelligence. Given the complex and advancing nature of information gathering, there must be a more robust integration of the human user into a multipoint and immersive knowledge discovery matrix.  Information gathering and manipulation technologies are limited in their ability to make a difference to the extent that the human user is limited in his ability to exploit that information. We propose to develop a system sensitive in the conceptual and methodological consideration of the human’s extraordinary abilities for perception, cognition and expression. The ‘perceptualization environment’   a multi-modal, multi-sensory, high performance communications tool for handling the escalating quantities and types of information the Office will confront in the near and distant future. 

We will research  and develop methodologies to not only present information to a user, but more importantly, to give the user tools which allow them to manipulate information in meaningful ways The representation and comprehensibility of information are the conceptual and technological challenges we seek to address with the perceptualization environment. This environment is a unified interface system comprised of a core infrastructure and experimental methodology which optimizes the integration of human intelligence through increased multi-sensory perceptualization and enhanced expressive capacity.  This tool will provide an order of magnitude increase in human-information interaction.  We propose to research an approach to the problem that leverages sensory physiologic principles with an operational knowledge of human-information system integration.  The priority of our approach is to connect the human to the content via an interface which exploits the visual, auditory, and the tactile capacities of the human body for perception.  This provides for a much greater capacity for perceptual interaction with information than the current interface model permits. our approach is to develop a system which generates and modifies information in terms of the user’s perceptual and neuro-cognitive  preferences to confront and manipulate information for specific, and at times highly contingent, purposes.  We are after an emergent fusioning of information where the user will be able to  rather spontaneously communicate their intention about the content at hand and its form.    Human neuro-cognitive integration into the fusing and presenting of information opens the space for discernment of knowledge which would have remained invisible. When the  human is more deeply woven into the processes whereby the machine makes decisions about data and representation, more powerful options for response are available.  This involves, for example, the capacity to specify queries and the representations of the results thereof enabling a powerful capacity to share that information with another expert who will be sent much farther along in the process of action. Physicality & Functionality

 

MindTel has developed powerful and generic hardware/software solutions to handle core functional elements of this communications environment. We currently conceive of the perceptualization environment as a physical space, enabling an intelligence worker to simultaneously explore and enhance both the  perceptual form in which information is being represented and the neuro-cognitive state of the human during perception of represented information. These Neuro-Cognitive State Enhancements which alter our perceptual cognitive states at calculated points during the design and execution of the interaction process will open  new realms of information which would have remained totally invisible.

 

MindTel’s research in this area is to think in new ways about the perceptual basis of human interaction with vast and diverse data sources . What we are proposing is far outside the normative realm of how to construct interfaces and represent information.  Thinking in these ways will require potential users to understand the challenge which confronts them in this time of intelligence gathering.

 Without pushing the boundaries of what can count as an acceptable means for accessing information and making decisions based upon it, unrealized possibilities to help go unseen.  We are aiming towards a new kind of perceptually based literacy to aid any process of high quantity, high performance interaction with information based on a desire for both a flexibility of functionality and massively enhanced perceptual dimensionality

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TECHNICAL/MANAGEMENT SECTION

 

MindTel, LLC

 

OPTIMIZING “MIND IN THE LOOP” INTELLIGENCE

 

Innovative Methods for Enhanced Perceptual Modulation of Human Interaction with Information in Perceptualization Environments

 

In response to the NRO Director’s Innovation Initiation, MindTel will propose the ‘perceptualization environment’ as a human intelligence amplification tool for meeting the intensive information requirements and pressures the Office will experience in the 21st century.

 

Our primary concern optimizing interactive interface between humans and information systems. 

 

Our goal is to make smart people smarter by fitting them with the most powerful and forward thinking technology by which their interaction with mission-critical information may be profoundly enhanced.  A “Perceptual Modulation Environment”

 This  perceptualization environment is for optimizing human-information interaction  by enabling perceptual enhancement through environmental and physiologic neuro-cognitive modulation. Our approach will be to optimize both the form in which the information is being represented -  perceptualization of information(– exploiting human neural sensory and perception systems through advanced multisensory rendering technologies and diverse array of expressional modalities) and also  perceptual state space modulation (influencing the neuro-cognitive state of the human during perception of information) such modes of inquiry which take into account the physiologic and neurocognitive state of the user in the perception and expression of information.

 

The Idea is to address these key features of the human interaction with information to mitigate the growing challenge for those required to interact with large volumes of diverse information with a view towards intelligent, and at times rapid, decision making 

 

Our goal then addresses the challenges and technologies for human-information interaction  in the context of how the brain is best disposed to receive and express that information.   This will lead to a system that will alter not only the representations of information, but also states of neurophysiology so as to alter perceptual states of the mind.   Our goal of Discovering  ways to massively enhance the mind’s commerce with information requires that we understand the options for making the brain more substantially able to receive and process data as well as access things in data which it may not regularly have access to.  Here again is where the idea of altering the brain’s capacities for accessing information within data will be a central innovation. The different possible means for altering the state of the brain will be explored in the context  of state specific sciences. 

 

            We will research, design and develop a physiologically robust Perceptualization environment -- an interactive information fusion environment with a rich set of multisensory rendering technologies and diverse array of expressional modalities

 

We will research and develop effective perceptual state space modulation  techniques --modes of inquiry which take into account the neurocognitive state of the user in the perception and expression of information.

             

Overall objective: Operationalize  perceptually enriched, interactively optimized Representational Methods –through Interactive  multi-modal, multi-sensory perceptualization of information.

 

Refine and implement methods for creating renderings of information across the different senses which take advantage of the specific features of multi-sensory physiology to access/accent overt and hidden information.

 

Develop and exploit techniques of Neuro-Cognitive enhancement  such as State specific sciences - modes of inquiry which take into account the neurocognitive state of the user in the perception and expression of information and Perceptual state space modulation altering the neurophysiological state of a user so as to alter perception and thus thinking about the information being interacted with.

 

Develop experimental methods for exploring Physioacoustic  Modes of physio perceptual alteration   

 

Our research will discern how to optimally exploit the abilities of the human brain for perceiving information both in physiologically robust representations of information and in the modulation of neuro- cognitive processes.

 

A Two-Fold Approach to Interaction with Information

Development of an interactive  Perceptualization environment and perceptual modulation techniques.

 

 Representations of Information- perceptualization

Emerging interface systems will concurrently present information to the visual, auditory, and tactile senses of the human body.    We will explore optimal representations especially when coupling the factors of volume of information and time.    Therefore, signifiers other than text and traditional graphics must be explored.  This means looking to visual forms of representation which are open to multi-modal features for conveying meaning (e.g., geometric shapes, colors, movements, morphings, etc.) i.e.   transform textual and other data into new kinds of signifiers for rapid and meaning-rich visualizations.   The same thinking would aim to integrate auditory and tactile sensory systems into the perceptualization environment

 

The over all outcome of our efforts will be the   systematic optimization of interactive information perceptualization and expression.

 Innovations we are proposing include - Perceptual Cognitive Alteration “perceptual modulation” The  Concept  of ‘State-specific sciences’ refers to the idea that states of the brain affect states of mind (i.e., perception and cognition).    Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that alterations in brain state will bring out some correlative alterations in perceptual cognitive state.   To this end we have developed the  conceptual and methodological framework  of “perceptual state space modulation,” for psychophysiologically altering our perceptual cognitive states, at calculated points during the design and execution of experimental process may open us to entire realms of information which would have remained totally invisible to us.  Leveraging off recent developments in cognitive neuroscience we find that not only do new representations of information promise to show us new and powerful contents of our information which we could not have otherwise seen, but so might changes in brain state give us new perceptions of that information.

 

We have identified several methods to physiologically modulate states of the mind. Acoustic modulations will be an initial avenue for perceptual state space modulation research.  As an initial proof of concept we propose to explore certain Acoustic frequency modulations in the perceptualization environment as a means of perceptual modulation.  Our research shows that Manipulated sound is well documented to  have effects on the central nervous system which may enhance perception and cognition.. Another means of inducing alternatively modulating states of the brain   is with bioenergetic modulations.  EM  and other kinds of energy modulations have been shown to have diverse influences on neurophysiology. Specifically psycho-neurophysiology.    

Also note that psychopharmacological interventions exist which have shown promise in enhancing the perceptual and cognitive processes of the brain via  neuromodulations of mental processes and perceptual states . It is also true that as neuroscience elucidates the different neurochemical and phenomenological associations with different chemicals, more possibilities for safe and effective use of such substances will be made available. 

 

Summary

All of this aims at the goal of massively enhancing the human interaction with information so that the best decisions can be made which affect lives, resources, and relationships between government and support entities.  There is no mystery that what we are proposing is far outside the present discussion of interface development.  However, there is a larger issue at stake.  Without pushing the boundaries of what can count as an acceptable means for accessing information and making decisions based upon it, unrealized possibilities to help go unseen.

 

Our challenge has been to think in new ways about the neuro-perceptual basis of human interaction with vast and diverse data sources.   By integrating multisensory perceptualization of information, state specific sciences, perceptual state space modulation We aim to make smart people smarter

 

 The perceptualization environment and methods of perceptual modulation are tools which we propose to design and develop such that the National Reconnaissance Office would be substantially bolstered in its important mission of intelligently interacting with immense quantities of diverse intelligence data.    

 

MindTel has experience  and expertise to successfully implement this project.

MindTel’s capability in this area has developed through working  relations with DARPA,ONR, NUWC

 

MindTel maintains adequate facilities to perform the tasks required.

 

A working plan of research and development efforts has been created.

Development of perceptualization environment –6 months

Operational testing occurs in month 7

 

A complete operational prototype is the final deliverable (along with all the necessary reports

 

 

Dave Warner MD PhD,  a Medical Neuroscientist, and Dir. Medical Intelligence for MindTel  will lead the project.