Microgames for Acquiring and Rehearsing Cognitive Schemas for Perception (MARCS)

Throughout their history, Marines have been targeted, or hunted, by snipers, terrorists, and other adversaries. The USMC has implemented the Combat Hunter Program to better counter these threats by teaching Marines to be the hunter, rather than the hunted. Combat Hunter skills include establishing baselines, or schemas, that identify what shouldand should notbe expected in combat settings. Existing training has focused on specific cognitive schemas for current deployment settings, but these schemas can become obsolete even with small changes in those settings. In our Phase I effort, we designed and demonstrated the feasibility of Microgames for Acquiring and Rehearsing Cognitive Schemas for Perception (MARCS), a suite of lightweight games focused on teaching Combat Hunters to construct and adapt schemas for particular settings or situations to enhance threat perception. Our approach focuses on training metacognitive skills of schema construction to enable context switching and skill transfer. Based on our Phase I success, we recommend a Phase II effort focused on developing a full-scope Microgame Training Suite to train a cross-section of metacognitive Combat Hunter skills, and an underlying Schema Construction Skills Model to guide educational game content and assess performance.