An Immersive Approach to Intuitive Information Processing and Decision Making

During Phase I of this ONR-funded effort, we made substantial progress toward the overarching goal of improving intuitive decision making in a variety of settings. In that effort we recognized an opportunity to inform the intuitive system by expanding the set of decision attributes that are immediately accessible to the user. This proposed Phase II effort will build on the intuitive systems natural ability to process data in parallel and will employ technology to mitigate the risks posed by the systems tendency to overweigh information that is right in front of us. More specifically, we seek to enhance implicit learning opportunities during scenario-based training by revealing what experts would attend to in like situations. Our approach provides a low-cost and practical means of improving the volume of feedback students can obtain during scenario runs. In a similar way, we seek to enhance intuitive decision making in work contexts (e.g., UAV control) by providing access to the expertise of others and displaying additional contextual cues as well as data describing the users emotional and cognitive state. Our Phase I results reduced technical risk and set a strong foundation for complete prototype development and evaluation in Phase II.