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

Sensing Cognitive Multitasking for a Brain-Based Adaptive User Interface


Authors - Erin Treacy Solovey, Francine Lalooses, Krysta Chauncey, Douglas Weaver,  
Margarita Parasi, Matthias Scheutz, Angelo Sassaroli, Sergio Fantini, Paul Schermerhorn, 
Audrey Girouard, and Robert J.K. Jacob


Authors Bios - Erin Treacy Solovey is a PhD candidate at Tufts University in the Human-Computer Interaction Research Group.
Francine Lalooses is a PhD candidate at Tufts University and has a Bachelor's and Master's degree from Boston University.
Krysta Chauncey is a post doctorate researcher at Tufts University.
Douglas Weaver earned a doctorate degree from Tufts University.
Margarita Parasi was earning a Master's degree at Tufts University at the time of this paper's publication.
Matthias Scheutz is a PhD student at Tufts Universtiy.
Angelo Sassaroli is a research assistant professor at Tufts University and earned a PhD from the University of Electro-Communication.
Sergio Fantini is a professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Tufts University.
Paul Schermerhorn is a post doctorate researcher at Tufts University from Indiana University.
Audrey Girouard is an assistant professor at The Queen's University and earned a PhD from Tufts University.
Robert J.K. Jacob is a professor at Tufts University.


Venue - This paper was presented at the CHI '11 Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems.


Summary


Hypothesis - In this paper, researchers state that multitasking has become commonplace in the work environment but software designers have struggled with developing systems to capitalize on this fact. The hypothesis is that through studies and experiments, the researchers will be able to develop a system capable of determining a certain cognitive state a user is in and adjust for maximum efficiency.


Content - The 3 scenarios of multitasking are:

• Branching - Task switching while keeping secondary task in memory
• Dual-Task - Frequent changes in task that do not require memory
• Delay - Secondary task can wait for primary task to finish

The 2 conditions of branching are:

• Random Branching - User does not expect task
• Predictive Branching - User expects task

Methods - 1) The preliminary study consisted of determining the cognitive states of 3 participants using fNIRS. The experiment was modeled after one Koechlin did earlier.


The following experiments use human-robot interaction (HRI) to study the usefulness of the system proposed by the researchers. The tasks being performed require both the human and robot and cannot be done a single entity. The basics of the task is sorting rocks and communicating with the robot regarding its location.
2) The conditions and actions for the study are as follows:

• Delay - If 2 classification messages are consecutive then put in the same bin otherwise put in a new bin. Begin a new transmission for all location messages.
• Dual Task - 
• Branching - For classification messages do the same as the Delay condition. For location messages do the same as the Dual Task condition.

12 participants were selected for the study. Participants practiced the procedure beforehand to get better at the tasks to make sure that they were thinking properly before applying the fNIRS sensor. The user had to perform 10 40-second trials of each condition.
3) 12 participants participated in the second study as well. They performed the same experiment as the second one but the stimuli was ordered as follows for the 2 types of branching:

• Random Branching - Classification and location messages are received pseudorandomly.
• Predictive Branching - One classification message were sent after every 3 messages.

Results - 1) The preliminary study showed to be accurate enough for the researchers to continue.
2) A significant difference in response time was found between delay and the other two conditions but no difference was found between the other two. They also found that the 3 conditions had very distinct hemodynamic responses and could be measured that way.
3) No significantly different results were found for response time or accuracy.


Conclusion - The researchers presented a conceptual design of a system that would take data from the fNIRS sensors and adjust the user interface to appropriately handle the cases being dealt with. The researchers conclude by saying that this thought process should be further explored and tested and they believe that they also built the case for HRI to be relevant to the HCI field.


Discussion


I think the researchers accomplished their goal of proving the hypothesis but did it in a very cumbersome manner that was thoroughly unclear. The paper felt disjoint at times and seemed to show where some of the researchers broke off and did their research separately and then applied it later. The results sections were also extremely unclear as it was never explicitly explained well as to what they were looking for and then they never said if the differences meant anything other than that they were different.