Paper Reading #27: Sensing cognitive multitasking for a brain-based adaptive user interface

References

Erin Treacy Solovey, Francine Lalooses, Krysta Chauncey, Douglas Weaver, Margarita Parasi, Matthias Scheutz, Angelo Sassaroli, Sergio Fantini, Paul Schermerhorn, Audrey Girouard, Robert J.K. Jacob.  "Gesture avatar: a technique for operating mobile user interfaces using gestures". UIST '11 Proceedings of the 23rd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology.  ACM New York, NY, USA ©2011.

 Author Bios

This research paper involved all people from Tufts University. Everyone on the list is either a post-graduate student, a professor, or a researcher at or for the University.

Summary 

• Hypothesis - The hypothesis is that an fNIRS tool will be as effective in capturing the tasking of a human mind as an fMRI machine. The researcher also hypothesized that a system using this tool can be created that will aid users in their tasks.
• Method - The experiment involved participants interacting with a robot simulation, in which they sorted rocks on Mars. Based on the pattern of rock classifications, they then divide tasking into three groups: delay, dual-tasking, and branching. They also tested whether the fNIRS tool would truly be as effected as the fMRI. They asked users to do varying tasked and analyzed how often the fNIRS tool correctly classified their tasking state.
• Results - The fNIRS was able to correctly classify some tasking states, but was not very accurate. The researchers noted that there were certain modifications that could be made to improve this statistic. They also created a system based off of this data in order to test the ability of a system to help users in multitasking.
• Content - The researchers compared the fNIRS machine to an fMRI machine, and noted that the fNIRS was not as accurate or as powerful as the fMRI, but that in a real-world application it is much more feasible. They then created a system to use the fNIRS to help users in their multitasking. The system showed some good results, hinting that it may be a good direction to follow.

 Discussion

This paper held my interest well. I (attempt to) multitask all the time, and frequently am bogged down by the time it takes to switch between the proper state of mind for each task. Going from phone to programming to email and back to programming takes much longer than it could, because I often do not wait to get to a stopping point before switching tasks. As I just did. And I lost my train of thought...well I suppose this blog's done.