The Bottom Line:
- The video game ‘MISSING: The Pursuit of Terry Hughes’ was designed to train US intelligence agents in decision-making by solving a fictitious missing person case.
- Hosted by Dr. Katy Milkman, the podcast ‘Choiceology’ explores the psychology and economics behind decisions using high-stakes stories and behavioral science research.
- The game’s narrative follows a player in Manhattan investigating the disappearance of their neighbor Terry Hughes, guided by clues that test decision biases.
- Expert guests, including James Korris and Carey Morewedge, discuss the development and impact of the game on reducing cognitive biases in decision-making.
- The program by IARPA demonstrates how serious games can effectively improve decision-making skills in intelligence analysis, providing durable effects on reducing decision biases.
Introduction to Choiceology: Exploring Decision-Making Under Pressure
Exploring the Purpose of the Video Game
The video game “MISSING: The Pursuit of Terry Hughes” is designed as a training tool for U.S. intelligence agents to help them avoid decision-making pitfalls by immersing them in a simulated missing person case. This unique approach aims to enhance decision-making skills by challenging players to navigate through a web of clues and biases within the game’s storyline.
The Design and Gameplay Mechanics
“MISSING (Part One): The Pursuit of Terry Hughes” presents players with a character-focused narrative that unfolds as they delve into the mysterious disappearance of a neighbor. Through interacting with various in-game elements, such as clues left behind in the apartment and engaging with other characters like the building superintendent, players are prompted to apply critical thinking and analyze information objectively.
Lessons on Decision Biases and De-biasing Strategies
As players progress through the game, they encounter scenarios that challenge their decision-making processes, highlighting common biases like confirmation bias. The game not only provides an interactive experience but also offers after-action reviews and lectures on decision biases to help users recognize and address these cognitive pitfalls. By incorporating behavioral science insights and game design principles, the game becomes a valuable tool for improving decision-making skills in high-stakes scenarios.
The Game ‘MISSING: The Pursuit of Terry Hughes’: A Training Tool for US Intelligence
The video game “MISSING: The Pursuit of Terry Hughes” serves as a unique training tool for U.S. intelligence agents, immersing them in a simulated missing person case to enhance decision-making skills by navigating through clues and biases in the game’s storyline.
Through interactive gameplay mechanics, players engage with a character-focused narrative surrounding the mysterious disappearance of a neighbor. By exploring clues within the apartment and interacting with various characters like the building superintendent, players are prompted to apply critical thinking and analyze information objectively.
As players progress, they encounter scenarios that challenge decision-making processes, shedding light on common biases like confirmation bias. The game not only offers an interactive experience but also includes after-action reviews and lectures on decision biases to help users recognize and address cognitive pitfalls. By integrating behavioral science insights and game design principles, the game becomes a valuable asset for improving decision-making skills in high-stakes situations.
Insights from Experts: James Korris and Carey Morewedge on Cognitive Biases
Insights from Experts: James Korris and Carey Morewedge on Cognitive Biases
In a narrative-driven video game called MISSING: The Pursuit of Terry Hughes, players are immersed in a missing person case designed to train U.S. intelligence agents in avoiding decision pitfalls. The game, created by James Korris for IARPA, challenges players to navigate through clues and biases by assuming the role of a character living in New York next to a seemingly mysterious neighbor, Terry Hughes. The game cleverly prompts users to critically analyze evidence, such as text messages and apartment details, to avoid falling into confirmation bias traps.
As players progress, they gather clues that challenge their decision-making processes, like assessing Terry’s financial troubles or interpreting her behavior based on security footage. Through interactive gameplay and after-action reviews, expert insight from Carey Morewedge emphasizes the importance of recognizing and addressing biases like confirmation bias, where people tend to seek and interpret information that confirms their preconceived notions. By integrating behavioral science with game design, this project aims to enhance decision-making skills in high-stakes scenarios effectively.
Psychological and Economic Perspectives on Decision-Making
In the realm of psychological and economic perspectives on decision-making, an intriguing video game named MISSING: The Pursuit of Terry Hughes is introduced. The game is crafted to help train U.S. intelligence agents by immersing them in a fictional case of a missing person. Through a character-centric narrative, players are challenged to navigate through clues and biases while unraveling the mystery surrounding a neighbor’s disappearance.
The game’s design aims to prompt players to apply critical thinking skills as they interact with various in-game elements such as clues within the apartment and engaging with characters like the building superintendent. As players progress, they encounter scenarios that test their decision-making abilities, shedding light on common biases like confirmation bias which influences how evidence is interpreted based on preconceived notions.
Moreover, the game not only offers players an interactive experience but also includes after-action reviews and lectures on decision biases to aid users in identifying and overcoming cognitive pitfalls. By integrating insights from behavioral science and game design principles, this innovative approach becomes a valuable tool for enhancing decision-making skills, particularly in challenging and high-stakes situations.
IARPA’s Serious Games Initiative: Long-Term Benefits in Intelligence Analysis
At the tone, please record your message. Chris Hughes: Hi, this is Chris Hughes. Look, I can’t reach my sister, and since you’re next door, could you please check on Terry? I’m really worried. I called the super. He’s got her apartment open. Just please look around. I’ve called Terry, but she’s not picking up. I don’t know where she is. Anything you could find would be a big help. Look, I owe you. OK, I … Katy Milkman: That’s an opening scene from a video game called MISSING: The Pursuit of Terry Hughes. The game was designed to help train U.S. intelligence agents to avoid decision pitfalls by working through a fictitious missing person’s case. Today on the show, we’re bringing you something a little different. We’re calling it “Choiceology’s Guide to Better Decisions.” We’ve gathered some advice from expert guests who study the science of de-biasing decisions, and we hope their insights will help you make ever more thoughtful choices. You’ll also hear from two guests whose work on the video game MISSING has had a lasting measurable impact on its players, improving the decision-making skills of people who work in one of the highest stakes sectors in the United States, intelligence analysis. I’m Dr. Katy Milkman, and this is Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. It’s a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. We bring you true and surprising stories about high-stakes choices, and then we examine how these stories connect to the latest research in behavioral science. We do it all to help you make better judgments and avoid costly mistakes. James Korris: This is James Korris. I’m the president and CEO of Creative Technologies Inc. in Los Angeles, a woman-owned small business. Katy Milkman: Back in 2015, James was contracted to design a game for the government agency IARPA. That stands for the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity. James Korris: MISSING (Part One): The Pursuit of Terry Hughes, it’s a character-centric narrative that follows the first-person player through a series of discoveries. And basically, you are in the role of a person living in New York, in a cool part of Manhattan, but you have a very boring job. Your neighbor is a very exciting, very interesting person, whom you know only very slightly, because even though she’s a next-door neighbor in New York, she’s almost a total stranger. And the inciting incident that gets the narrative rolling is a phone call from your neighbor’s brother who’s very concerned because she’s been missing for three days, and he can’t figure out what’s happened to her. So basically, it’s a mystery. Katy Milkman: The game is set up to challenge the player’s decision-making skills. James Korris: OK, so the first thing that pops up here is the user’s smartphone. We see that Chris has texted. He says, “Yeah, you’re in the apartment. Please look around. Take as many pictures as you like, but pick the best three that you think are good clues to help us figure out what happened to Terry. I hope nobody grabbed her.” Katy Milkman: The clues are cleverly designed to elicit a biased response. In this case, they trip up the player by leveraging people’s tendency to jump to conclusions with limited data. James Korris: By Chris saying, “I hope nobody grabbed her,” he’s setting up the hypothesis that there were malign actors who broke into her apartment and took her away. So the question is, “Will you be looking for evidence to support that? Or would you consider a counterfactual hypothesis?” And this is where we start to navigate around the apartment. So starting in the living room, see there’s a desk here. So we see there’s some papers around. See this bookcase. We move to this document here and pick it up. And you can see that there are restaurants in Los Angeles. And if you think about it for a moment, if someone is generating a list of restaurants in another city, it does not support the hypothesis that criminals broke into the apartment and kidnapped a person. So if you were to take a picture of this, then it would suggest that you do have some interest in exploring counterfactual hypotheses, so we’ll take a picture of that. OK, so here’s a chair that was turned on its side. Then we say, “Oh, well that might support the hypothesis that she was taken by force.” Bathroom’s kind of interesting. So here’s what’s in the bathroom. Wet towel on the ground, what does that tell us? Let me take a picture of that. And then over here, here’s her closet. And one of the things we notice is that there is a suitcase missing. So again, if someone is taken by force, they don’t usually pack a bag. So we got the chair that shows maybe by force, the towel, which suggests that she wasn’t taken by force, and the missing suitcase, sounds like she packed for a trip. And so, we’re going to send them to Chris. Katy Milkman: As the game progresses, other characters start to share clues, like the apartment building superintendent who comes over to Terry’s apartment and shows you some security footage. Speaker 5: Hi, you’re from 12G. I got a call from Chris, Terry’s brother. He told me you were in here looking. The guy is massively freaking. Did you find anything? Come with me. James Korris: Then he takes us into her office and there’s more discovery here. Speaker 5: I’ve got the security footage from the elevator. Here we go. This was just a couple hours ago. Terry seem like a nervous person to you? Katy Milkman: This clue might stand out if you remember the Choiceology episode about the fundamental attribution error. In that episode, we talked about our tendency to attribute other people’s behavior to their underlying attributes or personality and to disregard how dramatically their situation has likely influenced their behavior. James Korris: We might assume that she’s anxious because there’s something seriously wrong going on in her life. Or it just might be the fact that she’s in a creaky old elevator in Manhattan, and it’s the kind of thing that would make anybody anxious. Speaker 5: Personally, I think Terry’s in some kind of trouble. She always seems short of cash these days. Late on the rent last month. James Korris: There’s lots of stuff to explore on her desk. Here is an electric bill that says it’s past due. So this would support the hypothesis that she’s having financial problems. Katy Milkman: After clues are gathered and the first part of the game is over, users complete an after-action review and hear lectures on decision biases that might’ve tripped them up during the game. Carey Morewedge: Confirmation bias is a mistake that people make when they have one idea of what’s right, and then they search for evidence and interpret evidence in a way that confirms it. Because people are trying to confirm one idea, they don’t evaluate all evidence objectively. James Korris: So that’s Carey who’s speaking now. Carey Morewedge: In the game, for example, you search for clues about why Terry wasn’t in her apartment. If you only search for clues that Terry had a financial problem, and you didn’t check whether she was gone for other reasons, you committed confirmation bias. Katy Milkman: That’s Carey Morewedge. Carey is a professor of marketing at Boston University who studies psychological biases and how to reduce them. Back in 2015, James and Carey worked together on the project we’ve just described to marry behavioral science insights with game design, and to make the game as effective as possible at improving people’s decisions. Carey joined me to talk about the game and about his research on strategies for de-biasing decisions. Hi, Carey. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. Carey Morewedge: Hi, Katy. It’s such a pleasure to be here. Katy Milkman: I want to start by asking you if you could just describe your 2015 paper about two different de-biasing training programs that you designed, which I think of as really the best work on de-biasing. They had remarkable and durable effects on reducing decision biases. So I’d love if you could just explain the trainings you designed and how you proved their value. Carey Morewedge: The backstory is I got a call asking me if I’d be interested in building video games to reduce cognitive biases. And that sounded absolutely crazy to me. IARPA, which is an intelligence research program of the United States government, was doing these high-risk moonshot kinds of programs where a bunch of teams compete to see if they can achieve some kind of goal that has flummoxed the scientific community. And the program manager at IARPA who is running this program was a gamer. She got the idea that maybe serious games, which are video games with a learning component, could be used to reduce a lot of the cognitive biases that she was reading about. And then we had an initial meeting with them, and I said, “The data that you can reduce cognitive biases is pretty thin.” When we think about biases and decision-making, I think as a field we’ve often described that as there’s not much that we can do.
