Affecting Problem Solving and Reasoning
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Affecting Human Adaptive Reasoning and Problem-Solving using Flexible Adaptive Synergistic Training
IRAS ID
143867
Contact name
Roi Cohen Kadosh
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 3 months, 31 days
Research summary
The central aim of the research, which is funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity IARPA), is the design, evaluation, and refinement of a set of intervention tools intended to enhance adaptive reasoning and problem solving (ARP) skills among healthy adults that will be recruited from Oxfordshire. Our aim is to train and further improve ARP abilities using non-invasive brain stimulation. We will examine how and if such improvement allows individuals to generalize skills acquired in specifics context, such as those during cognitive training, to settings that may be unfamiliar and affected by varying degrees of uncertainty. These abilities are essential within various occupations and everyday life. For example, intelligence analysis requires the discovery and combination of information that is highly dynamic, as well as using often incomplete and inconsistent information to draw inferences for recommendations and predictions. In such situations and careers, complex tasks must be performed under time pressures and place considerable demand upon ARP abilities. Enhancing these skills will be achieved by engaging and enhancing cortical/brain processes that have been shown to be associated with ARP by combining cognitive training of adaptive reasoning and problem solving (ARP) mechanisms and using transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) to augment the cognitive processes that underlie ARP.
REC name
South Central - Berkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/SC/0131
Date of REC Opinion
31 Mar 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion