How a Video Game Helped People Make Better Decisions

Tuesday, October 20th, 2015

Carey K. Morewedge and his colleagues developed a couple “serious” computer games to help people make better decisions:

Participants who played one of our games, each of which took about 60 minutes to complete, showed a large immediate reduction in their commission of the biases (by more than 31%), and showed a large reduction (by more than 23%) at least two months later.

The games target six well-known cognitive biases. Though these biases were chosen for their relevance to intelligence analysis, they affect all kinds of decisions made by professionals in business, policy, medicine, and education as well. They include:

  • Bias blind spot — seeing yourself as less susceptible to biases than other people
  • Confirmation bias — collecting and evaluating evidence that confirms the theory you are testing
  • Fundamental attribution error — unduly attributing someone’s behavior to enduring aspects of that person’s disposition rather than to the circumstance in which the person was placed
  • Anchoring — relying too heavily on the first piece of information considered when making a judgment
  • Projection — assuming that other people think the same way we do
  • Representativeness — relying on some simple and often misleading rules when estimating the probability of uncertain events

We ran two experiments. In the first experiment, involving 243 adult participants, one group watched a 30-minute video, “Unbiasing Your Biases,” commissioned by the program sponsor, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), a U.S. research agency under the Director of National Intelligence. The video first defined heuristics — information-processing shortcuts that produce fast and efficient, though not necessarily accurate, decisions. The video then explained how heuristics can sometimes lead to incorrect inferences. Then, bias blind spot, confirmation bias, and fundamental attribution error were described and strategies to mitigate them were presented.

Another group played a computer game, “Missing: The Pursuit of Terry Hughes,” designed by our research team to elicit and mitigate the same three cognitive biases. Game players make decisions and judgments throughout the game as they search for Terry Hughes — their missing neighbor. At the end of each level of the game, participants received personalized feedback about how biased they were during game play. They were given a chance to practice and they were taught strategies to reduce their propensity to commit each of the biases.

We measured how much each participant committed the three biases before and after the game or the video. In the first experiment, both the game and the video were effective, but the game was more effective than the video. Playing the game reduced the three biases by about 46% immediately and 35% over the long term. Watching the video reduced the three biases by about 19% immediately and 20% over the long term.

In a second experiment, involving 238 adult participants, one group watched the video “Unbiasing Your Biases 2” to address anchoring, projection, and representativeness. Another group played the computer detective game “Missing: The Final Secret,” in which they were to exonerate their employer of a criminal charge and uncover criminal activity of her accusers. Along the way, players made decisions that tested their propensity to commit anchoring, projection, and representativeness. After each level of the game, their commission of those biases was measured and players were provided with personalized feedback, practice, and mitigation strategies.

Again, the game was more effective than the video. Playing the game reduced the three biases by about 32% immediately and 24% over the long term. Watching the video reduced the three biases by about 25% immediately and 19% over the long term.

The games, which were specifically designed to debias intelligence analysts, are being deployed in training academies in the U.S. intelligence services. But because this approach affects the decision maker rather than specific decisions, such games can be effective in many contexts and decisions — and with lasting effect. (A commercial version of the games is in production.)

Leave a Reply