Intent Inference Techniques and Applications at MERL

Contents

This paper overviews some research at MERL related to the task of inferring the intentions of people interacting with computers and/or each other. First, we discuss techniques developed as part of the Collagen project for inferring the intentions of individuals engaged in oneon- one collaboration. We then describe two projects, Human-Guided Search and the Personal Digital Historian, which support face-to-face group collaboration. These two projects currently do not employ, but could benefit from, techniques for inferring the intentions of groups of people engaged in collaborative activities.