SPECIAL NOTICE
A -- Integrated Cognitive-Neuroscience Architecture for Understanding Sensemaking (ICARUS) Proposers's Day Announcement
- Notice Date
- 12/16/2009
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 541712
— Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Biotechnology)
- Contracting Office
- Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, Washington, District of Columbia, 20511, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20511
- Solicitation Number
- IARPA-BAA-10-04(pd)
- Archive Date
- 1/17/2011
- Point of Contact
- Brandon S. Minnery,
- E-Mail Address
-
dni-iarpa-baa-10-04@ugov.gov
(dni-iarpa-baa-10-04@ugov.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- PROPOSERS' DAY ANNOUNCEMENT FOR: INTEGRATED COGNITIVE-NEUROSCIENCE ARCHITECTURES FOR UNDERSTANDING SENSEMAKING (ICARUS) SYNOPSIS The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) will host a Proposers' Day Conference for the Integrated Cognitive-Neuroscience Architectures for Understanding Sensemaking (ICArUS) Program on January 19, 2010 in anticipation of the release of a new solicitation in support of the program. The Conference will be held from 8:30am to 4:00pm in the Washington DC metropolitan area. The purpose of the conference will be to provide information on the ICArUS Program, to address questions from potential proposers and to provide a forum for potential proposers to present their capabilities for teaming opportunities. This announcement serves as a pre-solicitation notice and is issued solely for information and planning purposes. The Proposers' Day Conference does not constitute a formal solicitation for proposals or proposal abstracts. Conference attendance is voluntary and is not required to propose to future solicitations (if any) associated with this program. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION AND GOALS Intelligence analysts are required to interpret data that is sparse, uncertain, and potentially deceptive. The process of generating and evaluating hypotheses to explain ambiguous data is known as "sensemaking" in the psychology literature. In contrast with simple pattern recognition, sensemaking is a volitional process that involves actively seeking and weighing evidence for and against one or more explanatory hypotheses. Yet despite the centrality of sensemaking in intelligence analysis, current models of sensemaking remain descriptive and qualitative in nature and thus are of limited utility to the Intelligence Community. The human brain is the only known example of a general-purpose sensemaking system. Recent advances in our understanding of brain function, coupled with emerging insights into the nature of learning, memory, decision making, and related cognitive functions, have laid the groundwork for an ambitious new effort to understand human sensemaking. Insights gleaned from these discoveries hold the potential to substantially improve our ability to model, in an explanatory and predictive sense, the human element of the analytic process. These insights will enable us to develop new tools and processes that complement human sensemaking strengths and weaknesses, and to develop new automated analysis tools for assisting overburdened analysts with routine, low-level analytic tasks. The objective of the ICArUS program is to develop integrated computational cognitive neuroscience models that predict and explain human sensemaking behavior. The models are to capture not only positive aspects of human sensemaking, but also relevant cognitive biases in the areas of decision making, attention, and memory. Phase 1 of the ICArUS program will focus on developing integrated (i.e., multiple brain areas functioning as a whole system) computational neuroscience models of sensemaking that are able to learn and apply spatial contextual information in order to make inferences regarding ambiguous data. Phase 2 will expand the functionality of the models to include the ability to learn temporal structure in data (for example, event sequences) and apply this knowledge in a sensemaking task. Phase 3 will further extend the ability of the models to perform sensemaking under situations in which data (or the absence thereof) may be the result of denial and deception. Models will be assessed based on: 1) their fidelity to the underlying neural and cognitive mechanisms of human sensemaking; and, 2) their ability to predict human performance patterns on challenging analytic/sensemaking tasks. An independent Test and Evaluation Team will be responsible for developing and administering the test problems and for collecting human performance data for comparison. The overall sensemaking task framework will involve the analysis of simulated geospatial intelligence data; however, models will not be required to perform visual feature extraction, object recognition, or other purely perceptual functions. Successful proposals will involve a multidisciplinary approach combining insights from neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science and related disciplines. Consequently, a significant portion of the ICArUS Proposers' Day conference is dedicated to providing the opportunity to develop teaming arrangements. REGISTRATION INFORMATION Attendees must register no later than 5:00pm EST January 14, 2010 at https://conference.brtrc.com/ICArUS_pd/. Directions to the conference facility and other materials are available on the website. Due to space limitations, attendance is limited to no more than 2 representatives per organization. All attendees will be required to present a government issued photo identification (e.g. driver's license or passport) to enter the conference. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION This event will include a Poster Session to provide an opportunity for attendees to present capabilities and explore teaming arrangements. Details on the poster formats will be provided after approval to register for the Conference has been granted. Poster areas will be provided to the first 40 registered respondents with approved posters. Presentations to the Government to solicit feedback are not intended, and government personnel and their representatives will not be present during the Poster Session. This Proposers' Day is intended for participants who are eligible to compete on the anticipated BAA. Other Government Agencies, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), and University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs) will not be eligible to submit proposals to the anticipated BAA or participate as team members under proposals submitted by eligible entities. While such entities are not prohibited from attending the Proposers Day, due to space limitations, preference will be given first to those organizations that are eligible to compete. Attendees who wish to present organization capabilities for potential teaming opportunities may request to do so by sending an e-mail along with their presentation to DNI-IARPA-BAA-10-04@ugov.gov. Presentations will be limited to 5 minutes with a maximum of 5 slides (MS PowerPoint or PDF format). Opportunities to present will be limited by time and will therefore be on a "first ask" basis. Deadline for requests is close of business (5:00pm EST) January 14, 2010. It is the presenter's responsibility to ensure that all materials briefed are appropriately marked and approved for presentation by their organization (remember that this is an UNCLASSIFIED conference). The IARPA Program Manager will review and approve all presentations. IARPA will not provide reimbursement for costs incurred to participate in this conference. Electronic devices with the ability to record are prohibited at this event. Questions concerning conference & registration can be sent to IARPAevents@brtrc.com. Questions regarding the program can be sent to dni-iarpa-baa-10-04@ugov.gov.
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