Multimodal processing by finding common cause

Techniques that automatically determine whether events in multiple, multimodal input streams share a common cause are described. It is found that techniques are well-suited for answering a variety of context-awareness questions that arise in human-computer interaction. Context-aware systems being aware of human activity able to interpret a user's intentions and can provide context-aware and personalized support to aid task completion. It is suggested that additional techniques for extracting context information like why and how things happen must also be developed.