How gamification can build cognitive resilience to complex crisis situations

Faced with the accel­er­a­tion of increas­ing­ly com­plex and uncer­tain inter­na­tion­al crises, the issue of cog­ni­tive resilience has become cen­tral. This con­cept, which refers to the abil­i­ty to keep a cool head, adapt and make the best deci­sions in sit­u­a­tions of stress, infor­ma­tion over­load and ambi­gu­i­ty, is now a major chal­lenge for both mil­i­tary and civil­ian decision-makers.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, tra­di­tion­al train­ing meth­ods based on fixed pro­ce­dures and rel­a­tive­ly pre­dictable sce­nar­ios are reveal­ing their lim­i­ta­tions. They do not suf­fi­cient­ly reflect the chang­ing, some­times chaot­ic real­i­ty in which actors must oper­ate today. This is where sim­u­la­tion and gam­i­fi­ca­tion come into play, offer­ing expe­ri­ences that are more dynam­ic, inter­ac­tive and, above all, clos­er to the real com­plex­i­ty of crises¹.

Cri­sis man­age­ment train­ing has relied on sim­u­la­tors designed to repro­duce fair­ly lin­ear sit­u­a­tions where out­comes are rel­a­tive­ly pre­dictable. This approach is effec­tive when it comes to learn­ing pro­ce­dures or reflex­es, but proves insuf­fi­cient for prepar­ing for hybrid crises, cyber crises, or asym­met­ric con­flicts where infor­ma­tion is incom­plete, unclear, or even con­tra­dic­to­ry. What should be done if attacks simul­ta­ne­ous­ly hit sev­er­al vital infra­struc­tures such as the ener­gy², telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions³ and infor­ma­tion⁴ sectors?

Under these con­di­tions, deci­sion-mak­ing becomes a real cog­ni­tive chal­lenge, influ­enced by men­tal load and emo­tions, as well as some­times uncon­scious bias­es⁵. These essen­tial human aspects are too often absent from tra­di­tion­al train­ing, which lim­its its effec­tive­ness in unpre­dictable sit­u­a­tions⁶. It is there­fore nec­es­sary to mod­ernise the tools at our dis­pos­al in order to be bet­ter prepared.

To meet these chal­lenges, sev­er­al coun­tries have devel­oped inno­v­a­tive solu­tions. In the Unit­ed States, for exam­ple, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a mil­i­tary tech­nol­o­gy research and devel­op­ment organ­i­sa­tion) is focus­ing on immer­sive sim­u­la­tors that incor­po­rate bio­met­ric sen­sors to mea­sure oper­a­tors’ cog­ni­tive load and emo­tion­al state in real time. This makes it pos­si­ble to auto­mat­i­cal­ly adjust the dif­fi­cul­ty of the exer­cis­es and offer per­son­alised train­ing⁷.

In Chi­na, the approach is even more ambi­tious, with the devel­op­ment of brain-machine inter­faces aimed at direct­ly increas­ing cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, such as alert­ness or mem­o­ry, in high­ly com­plex sim­u­lat­ed envi­ron­ments⁸. In Europe, a more inter­dis­ci­pli­nary approach is being tak­en, com­bin­ing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, cog­ni­tive sci­ence and social analy­sis to bet­ter mod­el human deci­sion-mak­ing in cri­sis sit­u­a­tions⁹. How­ev­er, the inte­gra­tion of this research into train­ing sys­tems has yet to become widespread.

The devel­op­ment of these tech­nolo­gies rais­es eth­i­cal and pro­fes­sion­al con­duct issues, such as data use and protection.

Nev­er­the­less, the devel­op­ment of these tech­nolo­gies rais­es cru­cial eth­i­cal and deon­to­log­i­cal ques­tions. It is imper­a­tive to guar­an­tee data pro­tec­tion and ensure that these cog­ni­tive aug­men­ta­tion tools are used with­in a strict eth­i­cal frame­work, with­out manip­u­la­tive or con­di­tion­ing bias and in the inter­ests of cit­i­zens, i.e. not exclu­sive­ly for com­mer­cial or mil­i­tary pur­pos­es¹⁰.

Gam­i­fi­ca­tion is some­times seen as a way to make learn­ing more fun, but its poten­tial goes far beyond that. When well designed, it pro­vides a frame­work that sim­u­lates cog­ni­tive com­plex­i­ty, forc­ing par­tic­i­pants to make deci­sions in uncer­tain envi­ron­ments, with con­se­quences that can be unpre­dictable¹¹. These seri­ous games, par­tic­u­lar­ly those offer­ing mul­ti­ple-branch sce­nar­ios, are effec­tive train­ing grounds for devel­op­ing adapt­abil­i­ty, stress man­age­ment and deci­sion-mak­ing under pres­sure¹². In cyber cri­sis train­ing, for exam­ple, their effec­tive­ness has been con­firmed by sev­er­al stud­ies¹³.

Fur­ther­more, the inte­gra­tion of gen­er­a­tive arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence into the design of these seri­ous games paves the way for even more dynam­ic sce­nar­ios, where AI can gen­er­ate events, char­ac­ters or twists in real time, mak­ing each train­ing ses­sion unique and requir­ing increased cog­ni­tive adapt­abil­i­ty¹⁴.

Between 2022 and 2024, SRAT (Sys­tem Risk Assess­ment and Tech­nol­o­gy) car­ried out sev­er­al projects that per­fect­ly illus­trate this dynam­ic. The team devel­oped a sim­u­la­tor based on the Uni­ty engine, recre­at­ing a cri­sis man­age­ment cen­tre in a con­flict zone where users’ deci­sions influ­ence the course of events, thus intro­duc­ing the notion of uncer­tain­ty and unpre­dictabil­i­ty. Cou­pled with an elec­troen­cephalog­ra­phy (EEG) inter­face, this sim­u­la­tor mea­sures users’ cog­ni­tive load and emo­tions in real time, pro­vid­ing valu­able feed­back on their deci­sion-mak­ing mech­a­nisms. At the same time, SRAT worked on the C‑RAND project, a bench­mark for emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies in cyber-cog­ni­tive inter­faces, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the British Army. This work enabled the selec­tion of the most suit­able solu­tions for inte­gra­tion into train­ing and oper­a­tions sys­tems¹⁵.

Anoth­er notable project is the devel­op­ment of a dig­i­tal seri­ous game in HTML, used to train both Master’s stu­dents and offi­cers at the École Mil­i­taire Inter­armes. This game sim­u­lates a cyber cri­sis with mul­ti­ple ram­i­fi­ca­tions, forc­ing play­ers to man­age infor­ma­tion over­load and make quick and rel­e­vant deci­sions. Feed­back shows a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in adapt­abil­i­ty and stress man­age­ment skills¹⁶. Final­ly, SRAT has pro­vid­ed more than 100 hours of teach­ing; com­bin­ing arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, cog­ni­tive sci­ence and strat­e­gy with­in the High­er Mil­i­tary Sci­en­tif­ic and Tech­ni­cal Edu­ca­tion (EMSST), thus prepar­ing future exec­u­tives for the cog­ni­tive chal­lenges of con­tem­po­rary crises.

Sim­u­la­tion and gam­i­fi­ca­tion are strate­gic tools that can trans­form train­ing and increase the cog­ni­tive resilience of decision-makers.

To max­imise the impact of these tools on learn­er train­ing, the role of debrief­ing and struc­tured feed­back is cru­cial. Post-sim­u­la­tion analy­sis, where the data col­lect­ed (cog­ni­tive load, emo­tions, deci­sions) is used for per­son­alised feed­back, enables par­tic­i­pants to under­stand their bias­es and inte­grate their learn­ing in a last­ing way.

These dif­fer­ent approach­es clear­ly show that sim­u­la­tion and gam­i­fi­ca­tion are not mere gad­gets, but strate­gic tools capa­ble of trans­form­ing train­ing and increas­ing the cog­ni­tive resilience of deci­sion-mak­ers. In a world where infor­ma­tion is a lever of pow­er and where the speed of deci­sion-mak­ing can make the dif­fer­ence between suc­cess and fail­ure, it is essen­tial to strength­en this abil­i­ty to adapt and make deci­sions under stress¹⁷. Cog­ni­tive sov­er­eign­ty, like tech­no­log­i­cal sov­er­eign­ty, is now a mat­ter of nation­al security.

It is also impor­tant to con­sid­er that cog­ni­tive resilience is not sole­ly the pre­serve of deci­sion-mak­ers; an approach open to every cit­i­zen would raise aware­ness and pre­pare a wider audi­ence for the cog­ni­tive chal­lenges of con­tem­po­rary crises (dis­in­for­ma­tion, rumours, emer­gen­cies). In the cur­rent con­text of hybrid attacks aimed at spread­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion, stir­ring up hatred and break­ing nation­al cohe­sion, rais­ing aware­ness is a pow­er­ful lever of resis­tance that needs to be developed.

But it is not just about tech­nol­o­gy. Cog­ni­tive resilience is a com­plex process that requires an inte­grat­ed approach, com­bin­ing tech­nol­o­gy, human under­stand­ing and appro­pri­ate edu­ca­tion. The work of SRAT in France is lead­ing the way, with a prag­mat­ic, rig­or­ous approach that is close­ly aligned with the real needs of the armed forces. The chal­lenge now is to ensure the wider dis­sem­i­na­tion and adop­tion of these inno­va­tions, so that cog­ni­tive train­ing becomes an oper­a­tional real­i­ty and an asset in the man­age­ment of tomor­row’s crises.

Sim­u­la­tion and gam­i­fi­ca­tion open up excit­ing prospects for meet­ing the chal­lenge of cog­ni­tive resilience. More than ever, these tools must be seen as essen­tial levers for prepar­ing deci­sion-mak­ers for the com­plex and uncer­tain real­i­ties of mod­ern crises. Com­bin­ing tech­no­log­i­cal advances with a human-cen­tred approach is the key to build­ing true cog­ni­tive sov­er­eign­ty, guar­an­tee­ing effi­cien­cy and secu­ri­ty in a rapid­ly chang­ing world.