Mikel Ostiz, a doctoral student in the Mind-Brain Group of the Institute for Culture and Society, has been awarded a scholarship from the Caja Navarra Foundation’s Grants for Excellence. With this scholarship, he will undertake a research stay at the Human Computer Interaction Institute of Carnegie Mellow University (Pittsburg, USA) from March 1 to August 31, 2018.

The scholarship is one of six grants in the Mobility for PhD research studies category. Through this program, the Caja Navarra Foundation seeks to promote the pursuit of excellence in a variety of fields, as well promote talent that can benefit the Navarra Regional Community in the future.

Specifically, Ostiz is developing a video game focused on rhythm and visual attention, which teaches children to take the time to improve rhythm and look for differences in images to improve visual attention. The video game is called Jellys and is comprised of traveling to different worlds in which characters, a boy or girl explorer, undertake a variety of activities. The characters have to find and capture the jellys, which are small, smiling, gelatinous creatures.

The game trains for rhythm by, for example, having players capture jellys by tapping the screen according to a specific beat. For the visual attention piece, players find the right jelly (eyes open or closed, looking to the right or left, etc.).

A study with children from the Navarra Dyslexia Association

Ostiz’s next steps in his thesis include two evaluations. The first is a pilot study to primarily measure the game’s usability (i.e., if it is easy and intuitive). In May 2017, he held two focus groups with children and adolescents from the Navarra Dyslexia Association, one with kids from 9 to 11 years old and the other with adolescents from 12 to 15 years old. "It helped me to collect opinions and experiences," Ostiz noted.

Later, Ostiz will measure reading rhythm in children both with and without dyslexia before and after using the game.