Heuristica: Designing a serious game for improving decision making

Author

Mullinix, Gwen ; Gray, Oliver ; Colado, Juan ; Veinott, Elizabeth ; Leonard, Jim ; Papautsky, Elizabeth Lerner ; Argenta, Chris ; Clover, Marcia ; Sickles, Steven ; Castronova, Edward ; Todd, Peter M. ; Ross, Tyler N. ; Lorince, Jared ; Hoteling, Jared ;

Author_Institution

ARA, Inc., Dayton, OH, USA

fYear

2013

fDate

23-25 Sept. 2013

Firstpage

250

Lastpage

255

Abstract

This paper describes the design process and development of a 3D immersive serious game, Heuristica. The objective of this video game is to train players to improve their decision making by mitigating cognitive biases in an engaging and effective way. Heuristica is the result of three development and empirical evaluation cycles over 18 months. Several game features have been tested, and only those that improved learning while maintaining engagement have been retained in the latest version of the video game. These include reward, real time feedback, and game customization. Our development and playtesting process is summarized, and the implications for designing training are described.

Keywords

computer based training; decision making; serious games (computing); 3D immersive serious game development; Heuristica; cognitive bias mitigation; decision making improvement; design process; engagement; game customization; game features; learning; player training; playtesting process; real time feedback; serious game design; video game; Androids; Decision making; Games; Humanoid robots; Real-time systems; Space stations; Training; bias; cognition; decision making; experiment; serious games; simulation; training; video games;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Games Innovation Conference (IGIC), 2013 IEEE International

Conference_Location

Vancouver, BC

ISSN

2166-6741

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-1244-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGIC.2013.6659159

Filename

6659159