PROVIDENCE – Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University have split nearly $2 million in grants from the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, an empirical research nonprofit out of Los Angeles, to study emotional regulation and habit change in middle schoolers and college students.
The Rhode Island institutions are two of 11 total projects receiving a combined $9 million in funding to research different ways people’s experiences and beliefs shape their perceptions of reality – a concept the Tiny Blue Dot calls the “perception box,” according to an Aug. 27 announcement.
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
Learn More
Rhode Island Hospital received an $897,788 grant for the next three years, said Kelly Brennan, senior public relations and external affairs strategist for Brown University Health, the hospital’s Providence-based operator. The hospital will use its grant to test the web-based program iTRAC, which uses games, actives and videos to teach middle schoolers emotional management skills.
Researchers will track 200 adolescents, ages 12 through 14, for 18 months, examining whether the program impacted their perceptions of reality and emotional regulation.
For its part, Brown University received a $900,000 grant for the next three years, Judson Brewer, the project’s principal investigator, said in an email to PBN.
The university will use its funding to build a game aimed at using game-based learning, as opposed to lectures, to teach habit change to college students.
“We’re calling it Your Life, the Game, because it teaches curiosity and kindness through game play and then has students practice it in the real world,” Brewer said.
Fellow grantees include U.S.-based and international institutions, including Stanford University in California, Duke University in North Carolina, The University of Melbourne in Australia and University of Cambridge in England.
The studies “combine scientific rigor with practical tools that may help certain populations reframe harmful beliefs, recognize buried assumptions, and gain more agency over behaviors that can put them in conflict,” Elizabeth R. Koch, co-founder of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, said in the announcement.
Established in 2015, the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation funds neuroscientific research tied to the study of perception and consciousness, according to the nonprofit’s website.
Mica Kanner-Mascolo is a PBN staff writer. She can be reached at kannermascolo@pbn.com.
