“I've always wanted to study the science of fun; from video games to teaching tools, I want to help designers better understand how they can improve their products to make their experiences more enjoyable to users. After finishing my BA in Psychology, I found that there were still some unknowns about how best to measure user experiences and decided that I could fill in these knowledge gaps by pursuing Graduate studies. My current research focuses on improving the studying of learning, and I hope to gain insight on making learning fun while maintaining or improving the effectiveness of the learning program.

At SFU’s Cognitive Science Lab, we study how people learn and acquire skills over time using a variety of data sources including eSports replay files, eye-tracking experiments, and immersive virtual reality. Our recent projects have been focused on how attention, normally studied by tracking people's eye-movements, can also be studied by looking at the way people access information using their hands. This kind of research is meaningful to me because by studying these behavioural indicators of learning, we can advise coaches on how best to focus the efforts of their athletes' training programs, or even collaborate with designers to build better virtual learning environments while ensuring the best learning outcomes possible.”

Robin Barrett (He/They), psychology graduate student in the History, Quantitative & Theoretical program at SFU. In addition to their involvement in the Cognitive Science Lab, Robin will also be a speaker for SFU FASS in the Class series, where they will be sharing their research to high school audiences in an effort to raise awareness of the many different types of research and careers students can pursue in the future. 

This post was originally posted on the SFU Psychology Instagram on March 4, 2021.