CyberEurope

The problem

In a wide range of specialist areas—such as astronomy, neuroscience, archaeology, history, and economics—experts need to make sense of and find meaning in very large and complex data sets. Finding meaningful patterns in these large data sets is challenging. By comparison, looking for a needle in a haystack could seem pretty simple! Foraging for meaning in large data sets is a bottleneck that is becoming more challenging as scientific research creates and works with bigger and bigger data sets (the data deluge).

And it's not just scientists who are affected. In everyday life, we are confronted by increasingly complex environments requiring difficult decisions and rapid responses; think of trying to get the shopping done at the supermarket in a rush.

Goals of the project

In this scenario, the CEEDs project will develop innovative tools to exploit theories showing that discovery is the identification of patterns in complex data sets by the implicit information processing capabilities of the human brain. Implicit human responses will be identified by the CEEDs system's analysis of its sensing systems, tuned to users' bio-signals and non-verbal behaviors. By associating these implicit responses with different features of massive data sets, the CEEDs system will guide users' discovery of patterns and meaning within the data sets.

To achieve this goal, users will be immersed in synthetic reality spaces (SRS), allowing them to explore complex data whilst following narrative structures of varying spatio-temporal complexity. Unobtrusive multi-modal wearable technologies will be developed in the project for users to wear whilst experiencing the SRS. These will provide an assessment of the behavioral, physiological, and mental states of the user.

Individuals' pattern detection abilities will be augmented by linking multiple users together, creating a collective discovery system. Components of the CEEDs system will be integrated using generalized architectures from network robotics, creating a genuinely novel approach to massive distributed synthetic reality applications.

CEEDs' effectiveness will be validated through studies involving stakeholders from science, history, and design. The consortium envisages genuine benefits from the CEEDs system. Think, for example, of a young pupil using CEEDs being able to see complex patterns in an astronomy data set, patterns that, without CEEDs, would only be perceptible to an experienced professor. By unleashing the power of the subconscious, CEEDs will make fundamental contributions to human experience. When we look back to life before CEEDs, we may liken our experience to living with our eyes closed.

On the theoretical level, CEEDs targets a novel integrated computational and empirical framework, merging the delivery of presence with the study of consciousness, its underlying subconscious factors, and creativity. To do this, CEEDs will follow a multidisciplinary approach that will significantly further the state of the art across science, engineering, and the humanities. By bringing together a team of leading experts in psychology, computer science, engineering, mathematics, and other key disciplines, CEEDs will build the foundations for key developments in future confluent technologies.