ELADIS: Extremely Low Attentional Demand Information System.

The proposed ELADIS is a cognitive primer that requires virtually no attentional resources. Users are able to maintain awareness of and attention to visual information necessary for a primary task while concurrently receiving additional visual information through brief exposures.

SIFT has been awarded Phase II of SBIR proposal SB062-007, Extremely Low Attentional Demand Information System (ELADIS). The proposed ELADIS is a cognitive primer that requires virtually no attentional resources. Users are able to maintain awareness of and attention to visual information necessary for a primary task while concurrently receiving additional visual information through brief exposures. This additional visual information can be used to improve performance on a subsequent detection task by exploiting a human autonomic response.

The ELADIS design vision is a system of human and machine sensors. The focal point of ELADIS is the human operator. A priming phase prepares the human for detection capability, so that he or she may later act as a passive recognition sensor, via the galvanic skin response (GSR). The priming and subsequent GSR involve only the operator’s lower-cortical, unconscious processing. Thus, the operator’s normal duties and attentional demands remain unchanged. The ELADIS works via two phases: a priming phase and a detection phase.

Priming Phase

The administrator of ELADIS controls the content and scheduling of the bad actor priming images through the use of an image management system. The image management system is an interface designed specifically for ELADIS. The priming images are injected, via video-stream splicing, into a primary task monitor display. As the primary task is completed, the operator is primed.

Detection Phase

After being primed, the operator completes a task that involves interacting with people and possibly a primed bad actor. During this task the operator wears an unobtrusive GSR sensor. When the operator encounters a bad actor a GSR response occurs and a security officer is notified.