A fast-paced game app where players pretend they are baggage screening officers operating airport x-ray scanners has provided researchers with billions of pieces of data in record time, according to an article published by the American Psychological Association.
“Mobile devices offer researchers an exciting new means to crowdsource an experiment using games that are actually tests of cognition or other brain functions,” said Stephen R. Mitroff, PhD, of Duke University, lead author of the report, published in APA’s Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance®. “Questions that could have taken decades to answer in a laboratory setting, or that could not be realistically answered in a lab, can be examined using big data gathered in a relatively short time.”
To demonstrate the potential of mobile technology to gather data, the researchers partnered with Kedlin Co., the developer of the popular mobile app game Airport Scanner, which challenges players to identify illegal items in luggage passing through an airport x-ray scanner. Players view one bag at a time and tap their touchscreen to identify banned items. The game includes a logbook of illegal items (e.g., guns, hand grenades, switchblades) and legal items (e.g., ear phones, clothing), and the list expands from a handful of possible target items to hundreds as players progress through the game.
Between January 2013 and November 2014, the game provided anonymous data from more than 2 billion trials from over 7 million mobile devices that Mitroff and his research team at the Duke Center for Cognitive Neuroscience have been analyzing, the report said. Players consent to the data collection when installing the game on their smartphone or other hand-held device.
One research question explored through the Airport Scanner game was examining players’ ability to spot items that occurred on screen very rarely, or in less than 0.1 percent of all bags.
“When a target appears only 0.1 percent of the time, you need 1,000 trials to get just a single case of that target. Too many trials would be needed to realistically assess detection of that particular target in a laboratory setting,” Mitroff said. “With the large dataset, we were able to look at hundreds of cases for each of the nearly 30 rarest targets.”
Read more: Crowdsourcing with Mobile Apps Brings ‘Big Data’ To Psychological Research
The Latest on: Psychological Research
[google_news title=”” keyword=”Psychological Research” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
via Google News
The Latest on: Psychological Research
- Demi Mills shares research during the Annual Research Conference of the Eastern Psychological Associationon May 8, 2024 at 11:32 pm
Marietta College’s Demi Mills of Batavia recently shared her research during the Annual Research Conference of the Eastern Psychological Association in Philadephia, Pennsylvania.
- Managing the Psychological and Practical Aftermath of Disasterson May 8, 2024 at 5:34 pm
Natural disasters take a significant emotional toll. Here are strategies to manage the adverse psychological and decision-making impacts of disasters.
- New Research Suggests That, Over The Past Five Decades, Song Lyrics Have Become More Negative, Repetitive, And Simpleron May 8, 2024 at 4:00 pm
We all know that what’s popular in music is subject to change over time. But, a recent study analyzed the evolution of English lyrics in popular Western music across five key genres over the past 50 ...
- Taking the toll of Drake and Kendrick Lamar's vicious, gripping psychological warfareon May 8, 2024 at 9:05 am
As the jolt of adrenaline lit by the clash between the two biggest rappers of a generation fades, it's worth holding onto the possibility — however slim — that something new can grow from the chaos.
- Wildfires Have a Lasting Psychological Impact on Communitieson May 8, 2024 at 8:43 am
Jyoti Mishra, PhD ’08, MBA ’22, studies the lasting psychological impacts of natural disasters. Photo: Erik Jepsen, UC San Diego This article originally appeared in the spring 2024 issue of UC San ...
- Increased emotional sensitivity linked to previous COVID-19 infection, new research suggestson May 2, 2024 at 7:20 am
How prior coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection, through behavioral immunity markers, impacts socioemotional functioning.
- USD Professor of Psychological Sciences Receives Coveted “Prebys Research Heroes" Awardon April 30, 2024 at 8:29 pm
USD Professor Rachel Blaser receives a Excellence in Scientific Research Leadership grant which will support diverse student research in biomedical sciences.
- First-ever "psychological autopsy" in a criminal case in Kansas used to determine mindset of fatal shooting victimon April 27, 2024 at 8:05 pm
When Colby Trickle left the police station after his second interview, Burkholder checked out his claim that Kristen Trickle had used his phone to research life insurance ... a different type of ...
- Bachelor’s Degree in Psychological and Behavioral Scienceon April 17, 2024 at 7:47 pm
The Bachelor of Arts in Psychological and Behavioral Science degree opens doors to a variety of careers in counseling, education, social work, research and more. Our graduates are ready to take on ...
via Bing News