SBIR Phase I: Hacking Eye Movements to Improve Attention

This SBIR Phase I project seeks to commercialize a suite of gaze-driven training games that are designed to train attention orienting, focus, and inhibitory control. These video games are played with one's eyes, instead of a mouse or a touchscreen. By combining the gaze-driven aspect with embedded training principles, the games are uniquely effective in training attention. Attention is a foundational cognitive skill that is essential for academic success, much like reading is foundational to learning other subjects. The proposed project will result in a stand-alone system for elementary and middle schools to use in both special education and standard education programs for training attention control in children with attentional focus challenges. This product is particularly applicable for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), because their academic performance suffers from their attentional challenges. A key technical innovation for this project is the development of a suite of assessments that provide feedback on student performance on par with validated laboratory assessments of attention. The in-game assessments will be validated against the laboratory standards. At the end of this project, the suite of intervention and assessment games will be ready to deploy for testing in school settings as part of a SBIR Phase II project. Attention skill lies at the foundation of cognitive control and one's ability to scaffold successful classroom learning, yet existing laboratory tools to accurately measure attention's many facets are out of reach of the teachers and educators on the frontlines. This SBIR Phase I project brings innovation to the standard methods of attention assessment by creating easy to use assessment tasks that attract the attention of school children and whose validity will be compared to gold-standard lab assessments. This will make accurate assessment of attentional function more reliable even when delivered without an assessment expert present, and this project opens the market for attention training games that can show unbiased, quantitative improvement. This innovation will be broadly useful to allow a wide range of individuals to assess attention, but this specific project seeks to commercialize lab-quality attention intervention games for use by educators in schools with a software suite featuring interleaved assessment and training. This approach will provide feedback for school staff as well as ensure that the next steps in attention training are appropriate for the learner's current skill. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.