Danwen Huang

• BSc (Hons) Computing Science (Game Engineering)
• Analysis tool for detecting strategic thinking in recovering stroke victims

The project is around creating a web-based analysis tool for analysing common permutations (sequence of moves made by players) within user data (coordinates) collected from a 3 × 3 pegboard game. Players have to move 9 pegs from one board to another. The analysis takes in spreadsheet (CSV) data files and counts the common permutations, sorts them, display their distribution (times they appear in each player file) and outputs a visual chart representation of move sequences.

This data is used to detect certain player strategies such as if they’re reorganising the pegs onto the new board in a column by column fashion. We can use this as a marker for measuring if patients are showing more signs of using common strategies as they recover. There are currently little research on cognitive and strategic thinking recovery in stroke victims and the tool hopes to provide a gateway into that research. 

 Funding source: Newcastle University

 Supervisor: Dr Gary Ushaw