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31 March 2014

ONR INVESTIGATES “SIXTH SENSE;” SOME IDEAS ON WHERE TO LOOK

ONR Investigates ‘Spidey Sense For Sailors And Marines

Seapower Magazine had an article on March 27, 2014 with the title above. “Hunches are 50/50 propositions,” the article notes, “but, Navy researchers want to know if those facing the unexpected in the heat of battle can be trained to guess right more often than not.” To that end, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) hosted leading experts in neural, cognitive, and behavioral science to synchronize their studies of intuition — and, translate those findings into application for military personnel and the first responder community.”

“Ultimately, this is about Sailors and Marines being able to harness their gut instincts in situations where they need to act quickly,” said Dr. Peter Squire, program officer for human performance, training and education in ONR’s Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare and Combatting Terrorism Department. “But first, we have to understand what gives this rise to this so-called “sixth sense. Can we model it? Is there a way to improve it through training?”

This initiative is part of a four-year ONR, basic research effort aimed at improving intuitive decision-making through implicit learning. “Detecting roadside bombs while in a moving vehicle; sensing impending danger based on something unusual at a local café; deciding whether that object just launched off the coast is a missile or, an airliner — these are just a few of many scenarios when there isn’t a lot of time to make a decision.”

“A seasoned warfighter develops a gut instinct through experience,” said LCDR Brent Olde, ONR Warfighter Performance Department’s Division Deputy for Human and Bio-Engineered Systems. “If we can characterize this intuitive decision-making process and model it, then the hope is to accelerate the acquisition of these skills through simulation and scenarios; thus providing our Sailors and Marines with years of experience in a matter of days, and greatly improve their ability to make split-second decisions.”

These kind of research efforts in this area of cognitive science aren’t new. Just the same, I wish them well if they can break new ground or extend our understanding in this area. ONR may want to examine efforts in this area by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA) within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. I would also recommend working with Andy Marshall’s office — the Director of Net Assessment within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Academia, like MIT’s Sloan Management has also done extensive scholarly research in this area.

Finally, some other “out-of-the-box” places to look for this kind of research — NASCAR, Las Vegas Casino’s and their work in high-risk betting, the NFL, the Israeli Defense Forces, NASA/Astronaut community, and high-risk thrill seeking community — Mt. Everest climbing community, and other high-risk thrill seeking entities like free-fall sky diving, hand gliding, deep water diving without oxygen. Just some thoughts. V/R, RCP

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