Neuromatrix is an immersive video game for ages 11-14 -- use your brain to learn about the brain

I was a film producer before I started Morphonix in 1990. My interest in interactive technology began because I believed it could actively involve children in the learning process so they might learn at an early age, “your involvement makes a difference.” Children who grow up with this medium will have a better understanding of the way the world really works. The ability to link ideas and access information shows us that everything is related to everything else. If children can understand and appreciate this interconnectedness, we will see our values change. They will not experience school as a series of isolated subjects that are unrelated, but as patterns in harmony. Video games have the capability to transform our view of who we are, helping us to see the interdependence of all living things.

The immersive game format of Neuromatrix promotes learning by doing. You use your brain to learn about the brain. For example when you are in a characters cerebellum, diagnosing and solving her cerebellum problems, you are using your own cerebellum in activities that require balance and coordination. In another characters Hippocampus, you help him get back his memory by using your own memory.

We completed two research studies last spring.
In one of the studies, the major hypotheses was 1) children will be more interested in playing Neuromatrix than children in an enhanced classroom lecture with the same content; 2) children in the video game group will be more interested in the brain than children in the classroom lecture group; and 3) children in the video game group will gain more knowledge about the brain than children in the classroom lecture group.

Overall, the results indicate that there is substantial value in using video games to present educational content to children of middle school grades and that 1) children will play these games on their own, 2) they will benefit from their use from an educational setting, 3) there is significant “Replay Value” in this particular game, and 4) they like the venue and mechanism as a form of providing content in an educational and fun manner.

The studies indicate strong interest by students in the game’s neuroscience content. There are also significant gains in knowledge due to extended exposure to the game.

Neuromatrix address a very big gap in our education system. Children are not taught about their brains in school. How can we expect them to take care of their brains and nurture their brains if they don't know anything about them? Simply to make them aware that their brain is an organ in their head is already a huge leap.

Neuromatrix not only enables kids to learn neuroscience basics, it inspires kids to take care of their brains. This means everything from wearing a helmet when doing a dangerous activity, to not eating junk food when they could eat something healthy, and not filling their minds with junk TV or junk games when they could read, view, or play something that challenges and grows their brain connections. This might not sound like a huge changemaking activity to some people, because instant change is not visibly "effectuated." But really, the change is huge when the seed is planted and the payoff is reaped over the course of years.

A prime question is capturing the child’s attention, keeping it, and instilling the principles of brain function and brain care. Now, a movie is too short to do that effectively. A good book may be able to do it to a higher degree, because children become immersed in books for several hours -- in a similar way as they immerse themselves in games for several hours. A big difference between a story in a book and our game is that in many parts of the game, the very act of playing the game models the way the brain works. A book will never be able to do that, because it requires only one type of activity (an important one, needless to say) -- reading. However, in Neuromatrix, the very act of playing a Memory Puzzle game models how a memory is constructed in the brain. No book or movie can ever create that kind of immersive, first-hand, direct and active type of learning. The same holds true for the way the Cerebellum game models Cerebellum function and a game in the Left Parietal lobe models the parietal lobe problem scientist Jeff is experiencing.

Take as a further example the Diagnosis Process (DP) that the player uses in Neuromatrix to determine which part of a teen scientist's brain is infected with Nanobots, and therefore which part the player must travel to in order to root out the Nanobots. This is a key element of the gameplay: the player has a clear motivation to get this information, because it will lead him or her to the Nanobots. If the player makes an incorrect evaluation or doesn't ask the right questions, they will never have a chance to confront the Nanobots in the scientist's brain. Therefore, it matters in a very personal way to the player to understand enough about the brain, and about the type of DP used by neurologists, to succeed.

The Neuromatrix DP gameplay system of asking questions and evaluating responses is woven seamlessly with the techniques used by a neurologist to evaluate a patient with brain damage. Presented in a movie, a kid would passively observe a neurologist asking questions and stating his/her evaluation of the answers. The action is "out there" and being done by other people, not by the kid him/herself. In the game, the player must choose which question to ask and use their own brain to formulate an evaluation of the answer received. The player is enmeshed in the process, and is also subject to the consequences of the choices they make -- and being subject to such consequences makes the player think that much harder about what choice to make, which in turn means the player is paying attention to and absorbing content about the brain that much more deeply, since in our game the brain content is woven into the very fabric of the gameplay. In a movie, there is no choice made by the viewer and no consequence gained/suffered as a result of YOUR choices: you are simply presented with an outcome. The difference between viewing such subject matter in a movie and enacting it in a game is analogous to the difference between watching a soccer game and actually playing in one. The soccer player by necessity has a much more immediate and detailed understanding of the game, and knowing the ins and outs of the game matters in a much more personal way to him/her. The same can be said of a kid playing Neuromatrix: by being a player, and the one responsible for evaluating the brain health of a scientist, it matters much more to you that you get it right than it would if you simply watched someone else carrying out this action in a movie.

The Emotions Gallery game provides another example of how interaction produces a type of learning and understanding that is far more penetrating than simply watching a film. In this game, you see the face of the Director of the Research facility contorted in one of the six emotions that have been identified by neuroscientists as primary. The game requires you to take in that emotion and then identify which primary emotion the Director is feeling. If you identify correctly, the face animates and you hear a voice line that expresses that emotion. If incorrect, you hear a voice line expressing the emotion you chose and letting you know that it's incorrect. That means you really have to think about what his face is expressing. By going through all six emotions in this game, you absorb in a very individualized way how your perceptions match up with scientific research in this field. Your personal choice entered into the picture and you got immediate feedback about whether your choice accords with the way scientists interpret the facial expression. This gives you a fine-grained and in-depth understanding of how your way of interpreting facial expressions lines up with adults tend to interpret them. If you just saw these expressions in a movie and were told which emotion goes along with them, you'd absorb the information in a rather shallow way. The facial expressions and their emotional denotations have been studied in enormous detail by scientists like Paul Ekman at UCSF, and the design of our game incorporates the results of this research -- there is nothing arbitrary about how we chose the emotions and facial expressions.

The dialogue choices made in the Dream Lab, in which you engage three dream Nanobots in conversation in order to convince them to give you neurotransmitters that are needed to help a scientist wake up, present a different kind of challenge. Here, the frame of the Dream Lab game provides the neuroscience content: the player learns that brain chemicals called neurotransmitters are responsible for regulating functions like sleep and waking. Each of the three Nanobots has a different personality and responds to different verbal approaches. If you select a line that accords well with the Nanobot's personality, it will respond in a way that encourages you to keep going. If not, it responds more negatively. The Nanobot responses create a feedback matrix for the player to use in judging which dialogue line to choose next. The feedback matrix that we developed for this game imparts a larger lesson, which is that every creature's mind works in a slightly different and individual way. While a movie can convey this idea via passive observation of a story, it cannot bring the player to experience it personally the way you do in this game. In the game, the player can test his or her own individual perceptions of what type of approach he or she thinks will work best, and find out the results of those perceptions, which matter to the player because of the importance of getting the neurotransmitter. In a movie, you can only observe the choices made by other people.

These direct interactive learning experiences encode deeply in a child’s brain. Paired with the story and adventure, they build over the course of the game in a way that keeps them involved and wanting to know more about the brain. By the end of the game, the player will have internalized a new respect for and concern about his or her own brain by PLAYING and HAVING FUN. This is a much stronger way for kids to retain and value important concepts than by imparting them through a lecture or reading or movie that tells them "pay attention to this because it's good for you."

As for what we can claim from our research, it's true that we didn't try to explore in detail ways in which the game may deeply encode these principles. However, the fact that kids do show greater interest in the brain is significant, because capturing their attention is the first step -- a crucial and necessary step. The fact that they also learn more about the brain by playing proves that we are on the right track and backs up the goals articulated above.

hi, Karen,

Today afforded me an opportunity to read an article too long in my "to-read" pile -- and it prompted me to think of you and your entry. This article points to research that indicates that simply by teaching kids 'that the brain is a muscle and that [giving] it a harder workout makes [a person] smarter ALONE improved their math scores." It's a broader article about which "frames" for achievement actually bolster achievement (and which diminish achievement). It seems to offer an entirely new framework for marketing your game -- as a mechanism that might actually produce quantitative improvements in kids' scores. Seems to me that, if your game actually improves kids' scores on tests, you have an incredible marketing opportunity.

Here's the link to the article: http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/
You might want to take a look.

Best,
Diane
Changemakers

I think the idea of imersing the students into learning by doing has real merit. Are you aware of VR technology where kids become so immersed in the experience they do not feel the normally excurciating pain of having burn wounds redressed. There is VR work in the UK which is stoping pain messages in a permanent sense and in Isreal this is used in a 2D format projected on a plasma screen such as you would with your game. The science is there that we can no only teach but retrain the brain to switch off aberant messages. As an educational tool this is great. It has greater potential.

jeisea
http://www.crps-rsd-a-better-life.blogspot.com