A method and system for implicitly resolving pointing ambiguities in human-computer
interaction by implicitly analyzing user movements of a pointer toward a user targeted
object located in an ambiguous multiple object domain and predicting the user targeted
object, using different categories of heuristic (statically and/or dynamically
learned) measures, such as (i) implicit user pointing gesture measures, (ii) application
context, and (iii) number of computer suggestions of each predicted user targeted
object. Featured are user pointing gesture measures of (1) speed-accuracy tradeoff,
referred to as total movement time (TMT), and, amount of fine tuning (AFT) or tail-length
(TL), and, (2) exact pointer position. A particular application context heuristic
measure used is referred to as containment hierarchy. The invention is widely applicable
to resolving a variety of different types of pointing ambiguities such as composite
object types of pointing ambiguities, involving different types of pointing devices,
and which are widely applicable to essentially any type of software and/or hardware
methodology involving using a pointer, such as in computer aided design (CAD),
object based graphical editing, and text editing.
