Professor Shawn Green has been honored with a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research.
Professor Green’s previous work has shown that playing some types of highly active and demanding video games results in clear enhancements in certain perceptual and cognitive abilities. Because such games are highly complex though, it is currently unclear what aspects of these games are particularly critical and/or necessary in engendering the observed positive outcomes. This lack of knowledge in turn severely limits our ability to design new games for positive impact in domains such as rehabilitation, job-training, and education. Therefore, under the current award Professor Green will utilize a custom built research video game to examine the specific game characteristics that are most important in driving human learning. In this endeavor he will examine the effect of various game manipulations on learning both at the level of behavior and at the level of neural structure.
You can read more about Professor Green’s research here: http://psych.wisc.edu/faculty-green.htm
And learn more about the award and other awardees here: http://www.onr.navy.mil/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2016/2016-ONR-Young-Investigators.aspx