Crowdsourced Neuroscience Via Gaming

The Great Brain Experiment is looking to study our brains in a way that only functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanners could before and this is being done using a game. You can download the game onto an iOS or Android device and test yourself and how you compare to others through a series of specially-designed mini games. This is a new project from University College London (UCL) and they are looking to leverage game-collected big data to asses our brains, which is a first as far as I know. This form of data collection can save money because the cost of fMRI time is just too damn high.

“The Great Brain Experiment is one of the first neuroscience experiments to ‘gamify’ data collection and crowdsource it to volunteers. This has the potential to be the largest neuroscience experiment ever conducted, marking a new development in citizen science and allowing us to ask some really interesting questions that have never before been possible to ask in neuroscience.”

My favourite mini game in the app is the picture test, but only because I outperform “the average person” (it’s all about the small victories in life, isn’t it?). “In the game, the user sees a succession of different images, each of which appears very briefly. In the middle might be two different images of cats; at the end, the user is asked to select the second cat out of a choice of four. The majority of people will not be able to answer correctly.”

You can read more about the game from UCL’s press release.



March 21st, 2013 by Adam

Marshall Rosenberg on Nonviolent Communication

Rosenberg

I really enjoyed these talks by Marshall Rosenberg on his work in spreading nonviolent communication. He founded the Center for Nonviolent Communication.

This first video is a good introduction to his thinking and some of his life.

This video is targeted at educators and how to embody nonviolent communication.



February 27th, 2013 by Adam

Games About Living with Depression

This past week saw two games released that focused on what it’s like living with depression. These games are very serious games dealing with a very serious issue. If you’ve lived with depression please be warned that these games can be a trigger. You may just want to go look at good things instead.

Depression Quest is playable online and is heavy on the text (over 40,000 words!) with a good number of narrative branches to go through. There is, however, only five endings so don’t worry about the game never ending. You can play for free or pay what you want for the game (the developers are donating to iFred).

Having just played the game, I can assure that it is intense. Your options are limited because depression itself limits your options, and more often than not, you can see the other options but they are struck out. The text with the static background provides some context as to why some options are removed.

Clearly, one of the goals of the game is to get people talking about depression. This is a good thing as mental health is often ignored because it is usually invisible. All the online conversations I’ve seen have involved some people comparing their lives to the fictional one in the story; pointing out that the character in the game is better off. One of the designers of the game, Zoë Quinn, has a choice response to that.

The other game that came out last week is Actual Sunlight, and it’s equally as intense. The game’s conclusion is obvious from the start; RPS sums up the game succinctly:

Actual Sunlight is a brutal depiction of a man’s life self-destructing, and it’s a game whose central character can only find hope in his own death. And as such, his own death is the only hopeful moment in the game. Which is just beyond uncomfortable.

Will O’Neill is a Toronto based writer who made the game and was interviewed by Kill Screen. The interview talks about the basics of why he made the game and what it was like to create it.

“Throughout the development of it, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t doing it purely for the sake of trying to viciously rip myself into as many pieces as I possibly could.” he says. “It certainly felt that way sometimes, but that wouldn’t have been honest either: I think life is funny and beautiful, too, and I have a lot of good things, even if I’ve screwed some of them up. I think most people feel this way.”

O’Neill is running an Indie GoGo campaign to continue working on the game, here’s the promo video for it:

Found out about Depression Quest via MetaFilter and Actual Sunlight via Kill Screen.



February 18th, 2013 by Adam

BBC Looks at a 90 Year Old Gamer

In this news segment the BBC notes that one senior plays games for fun and for something to keep her brain going: ‘Computer games keep me mentally active‘

Using games for this purpose is not new, but it is gainging in popularity. RealAge writes in response to a question about how to keep mentally active that there is now research in ways that games can help seniors:

It’s no wonder the National Science Foundation is putting $1.2 million into a four-year study to investigate if and how video games slow cognitive decline. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation also pledged $8.5 million to study the impact of video games on everything from Alzheimer’s disease to driving skills.

So play games and stay young ;)



January 23rd, 2013 by Adam

BBC Documentary on Colour

The BBC program Horizon produced a great documentary on the perception of colour. It covers a lot of great ideas around colour from a science-based perspective as well as how different cultures understand and communicate ideas of colours.

It is amazing how much colour can literally change our mind on things.

You can watch it here:


Horizon Do You See What I See Part 1-4 by plamenj



November 21st, 2012 by Adam
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