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IARPA Names Winner of Trust Research Challenge

The force was with the winners of the INSTINCT Challenge.

There’s no trick behind this JEDI MIND.

That’s because the Joint Estimation of Deception Intent via Multisource Integration of Neuropsychological Discriminators (yes, that leads to the acronym JEDI MIND) is a complicated algorithm solution to a question posed by a leading intelligence agency research arm: Who can you trust?

Troy Lau and Scott Kuzdeba won the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity's (IARPA's) first public challenge contest, titled Investigating Novel Statistical Techniques to Identify Neurophysiological Correlates of Trustworthiness (INSTINCT).

The JEDI MIND technique found that people’s heart rates and reaction times can help predict how likely their partners are to keep promises. It increased accurate predictions by 15 percent. Lau and Kuzdeba, who work in BAE Systems’ Adaptive Reasoning Technologies Group in Burlington, Massachusetts, took home a $25,000 prize.

The 70-day INSTINCT Challenge, which began in mid-February, drew 39 solvers who developed and submitted algorithms. Seven exceeded a pre-set baseline performance. JEDI MIND’s algorithms performed well on a new data set used for evaluation, according to an IARPA statement.

“We’re delighted with Lau and Kuzdeba’s insight into the data,” Adam Russell, program manager for the Tools for Recognizing Useful Signals of Trustworthiness (TRUST) program, says in the statement. “Their performance under the rigorous evaluation process of the INSTINCT Challenge provides additional evidence in support of one of the TRUST program’s basic hypotheses: that the self’s own, often non-conscious signals—if they can be detected and leveraged appropriately—may provide additional valuable information in trying to anticipate the intentions of others.”

IARPA is currently assessing next steps for potential new research in this area. The agency, which falls under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, invests in high-risk, high-payoff research programs that have the potential to provide the United States with an intelligence advantage over adversaries.