Price Assistant Professor Matthew Jensen was part of a winning team of OU developers during the Eighth Annual Serious Games Showcase and Challenge at the Inter-Service/Industry Training Simulation and Education Conference. The team’s serious video game, MACBETH, was awarded the “Best Business Game” at the Orlando, Fla., conference.
The award was based on recommendations from a panel of more than 100 game developers and serious game researchers. MACBETH also received the “Adaptive Force” award, which is an award recommended by the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
“Our research is important because MACBETH helps players make better decisions by teaching them how to avoid leaping to unwarranted conclusions,” Jensen said. “This is a serious concern for any individual who must quickly make critical decisions.
“It is especially important for intelligence analysts.”
MACBETH was one of 17 games selected from more than 50 submissions for the showcase at the conference. The Serious Games Showcase & Challenge is the premiere venue for recognition of excellence in the field of serious games development.
MACBETH, which also won in the “Adaptive Force” category, allows the player to make sound decisions with the information provided, while non-player character mentors guide a player with insight as to what a player did wrong. Adaptive Force games improve an individual’s ability to repeatedly try new or different strategies to solve problems, while considering feedback with the purpose of improving overall success.
MACBETH was funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity via the Air Force Research Laboratory and was designed to train intelligence analysts about three specific cognitive biases: the fundamental attribution error, the confirmation bias and the bias blind spot.
OU collaborated with the University of Arizona when testing the game. The OU team included Norah Dunbar, OU Department of Communication; Scott Wilson and Javier Elizondo, OU K20 Center; Jensen, Price College; Claude Miller, OU Department of Communication; and 12 other scientists.
