APTIMA INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: OSD12-AU5

Description

There is an increasing need for fast and accurate analysis of large volumes of disparate data containing critical information. Existing tools for information search, retrieval, and exploitation are inadequate because the tools have limited ability to (1) help the analyst understand the semantics within the information, (2) reveal the relationships between the information and the analytic task, or (3) demonstrate the best ways to fuse the information into an assessment. Cognitive biases that result from limitations inherent in human cognitive processes subconsciously influence intelligence analysis, and current tools provide little or no help to prevent these biases from influencing results. Aptima and our partners propose to further develop an Adaptive Workspace for Analyst Knowledge and Engagement (AWAKE) capability. AWAKE will provide the next generation of cognitive, knowledge-aided analyst support systems to promote a more effective human-machine partnership, enabling analysts to focus on what they uniquely do best as humans, while the autonomous system looks over their shoulder to provide them cognitive aid. AWAKE provides a capability for measuring the analysts level of rigor; automatically identifying indicators of cognitive biases and vulnerabilities, based on a semantic interpretation of the users interactions with the system; and personalized agents to support analyst activities.