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.