Broad-Spectrum Mitigation and the Cognitive Neurobiological Interface: Considering Biological Rhythms in Augmented Cognition

Abstract

Brain-computer interface design relies upon mitigating human performance. Recent attempts have focused mainly on real-time cognitive processing. This paper will consider biological rhythms as a longer-term and more dynamic factor for determining human performance in such systems. To characterize the contribution of such neurobiological phenomena to human performance, biological rhythms will be proposed as the input for both “sub-cognitive” state gauges and a predictive model based on complexity theory that modulate the input/output properties of basic cognitive state gauges. The relationship of biological rhythms to cognitive processing exists at multiple temporal scales, and provides an additional level of complexity to currently held conceptual models. Most notably, a concept called broad-spectrum mitigation will be considered as a way to improve human performance and more effectively augment cognitive processing.