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New Video Game Measures Visual Perception in Kids with Autism
Confirmed
In Short: Researchers have developed GEODE, a video game designed to measure visual perception in children with autism.
Researchers have developed a new video game called GEODE (gathering evidence to optimize decisions) to measure visual perception in children with autism, according to a study published in Science Advances.
The game, designed by Benjamin Scott, PhD, and Helen Tager-Flusberg, PhD, aims to include minimally verbal children who are often excluded from similar studies.
Scott explained, “She saw that our approach might be able to get perceptual information from minimally verbal kids with autism who are typically excluded from this type of work.”
Scott and Tager-Flusberg found that autistic teens struggled more with integrating and utilizing new sensory information as the game progressed.
Scott said, “The deficit seems to be in a component of perception called perceptual integration, where you are accumulating information over time to form a complex idea about the world.”
The design of GEODE was based on an earlier game called Indie and Alone, which was used in a previous online study looking at rule learning and evidence accumulation in adults.
Scott and Tager-Flusberg worked with video game designer Sadie Johnson to create GEODE.
Scott noted, “Behavioral shaping just means starting off as simply as possible and then gradually increasing the complexity until you’re performing the entire task. Kind of like levels in a video game.”
The team aimed to instill a sense of excitement, hold attention, and create the desire to engage throughout the game.
Scott and Tager-Flusberg’s work highlights the difficulty in bridging animal and human research in autism.
Scott explained, “It’s been really hard to bridge the animal work and the human work in autism, because while we know some of the underlying genes, it’s very unclear what the behavioral or neural signatures of autism would be in an animal model.”
What this adds
The game's design focuses on reinforcement and behavior shaping to ensure engagement and accurate data collection.
The team found that the autistic teens found it harder to take in and use the new sensory information they were receiving as the game progressed.
Tager-Flusberg was interested in some of the technologies that Scott’s team used in the lab to study perception and learning in animal models, particularly rodents.
Background
Researchers have developed a new video game called GEODE (gathering evidence to optimize decisions) to measure visual perception in children with autism.
What's confirmed
- The game is called GEODE (gathering evidence to optimize decisions), an online video game “designed to measure visual perception across the full autism spectrum,” according to their study in Science Advances.
- The design of GEODE was based on an earlier game he made called Indie and Alone for a previous online study looking at rule learning and evidence accumulation in adults ( Indie and Alone is a play on words for Indiana Jones).
What's still developing
- “When I told him about what Helen and I had discussed, he got very excited and said, ‘You know what, I could turn the training pipeline and task we use in rodents into a video game.’ That was the initial spark that turned Helen and my discussion into this project,” explained Scott.
- “I want to make and play games where I can pretend to be in the movie. [I thought] Maybe that could resonate with people,” said Do.
- “In the new game, the character design was left intentionally vague so players can see and interpret the main character as they wish,” said Do.
- “A lot of research in autism focuses on either a group with profound autism or a group of highly verbal individuals with autism,” she said.
- With Brazil’s first-round election just days away, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will announce another package of measures this Friday (Sept.
- 25) aimed at improving perceptions of his government.
- The game's design focuses on reinforcement and behavior shaping to ensure engagement and accurate data collection.