Participant Information

UCL Research Ethics Committee Approval ID Number: 16711/002

Hi! We are researchers from University College London (UCL) and we want to understand how the brain works.

You can play games and we get useful data on how the brain works. Whenever you play a game, your score is automatically sent to our server in an anonymised form. To collect these data, we need to have your consent.

Please read the rest of the information carefully. You can find it again at any time in the ‘Profile’ section of the app.

 

Why have I been asked to take part?
We want to find out why some people have difficulties in making decisions and learning so that we can help these people. Above all, we want you to enjoy the games, and to find out a bit more about how psychologists investigate the inner workings of the human brain.

What will happen?

You will provide some basic demographic information and confirm some settings in order to sign up. These may include your age, ethnicity, gender, country of residence and native language. In addition, you will be asked about your own or your family’s history of mental health problems.  You do not have to provide any information you are uncomfortable with. After that, you’re free to play the games. If you agree at the end of this consent form to send us your data we’ll get useful data each time you play that will help us promote research. You will also be asked to fill in some questionnaires from time to time that may involve questions about your mood, behaviour and feelings. You do not have to answer those questions if you do not want to.

How long will it take?

The sign-up process should take only a few minutes.  Each game or questionnaire takes about five minutes to play.

Will taking part help me?

There will be no direct benefit to you, but you will have helped with important research. By understanding how people think and make decisions we hope to help individuals in the future, and you will have contributed towards this.

Will taking part be bad for me in any way?

All the measures are safe. The risk of harm from taking part will be no greater than in ordinary life.

What data will I be sharing?

Your game scores, the basic details you give us and your responses to occasional questionnaires will be sent to us. No passive data, such as GPS location, will be collected.

What will you do with this data?

We’ll use it for our academic research, and to create summary data that all app users can see.  We’ll apply statistical methods to the combined responses from everyone taking part. We’ll publish the results of our research in scientific journals. The papers will be available to read online – go to the news page on our website to see details of recent studies .

Is it anonymous?

Yes. The data collection is anonymous and furthermore we won’t use your information at any point to try to identify you. We don’t ask for your name or for any other personal details, and we don’t need your phone number to send notifications to your phone. We will never sell your data to any third party. We may make anonymous data available for further research by other parties such as academic researchers at other institutions.

Is it secure?

The data is not encrypted before it is submitted over the internet. However, no personal information is used by the app or sent to us.

Do I have to take part in the research to use the app?

If you don’t want to take part in the research, go to the app ‘Profile’ screen and change ‘Participate in the experiment’ to ‘Off’ at any time. You will still be able to play the games. If you change your mind, you can change the setting back to ‘On’ at any time.

Is it easy to get out of?

Taking part is completely voluntary. You can change your preference in the ‘Profile’ menu at any time and without giving a reason. You can decide not to send us data from the games by switching ‘Participate in the experiment’ to ‘Off’ ‘in the app under ‘Profile’. This option will keep the data that you have already sent us, but prevents any new transmission of your data.

You can also withdraw your consent completely from the experiment at any time. To do this, go to the app ‘Profile’ section and choose ‘Withdraw consent’ option. This will delete your data from our data store. However, we won’t be able to remove any data that have already been processed or made available for further research.

You can also just delete this app from your device at any time, although after you do this, you won’t be able to withdraw your consent and we cannot delete the data that you have already provided.

 

Data Protection Privacy Notice:

Notice:

The controller for this project will be University College London (UCL). The UCL Data Protection Officer provides oversight of UCL activities involving the processing of personal data, and can be contacted at data-protection@ucl.ac.uk

This ‘local’ privacy notice sets out the information that applies to this particular study. Further information on how UCL uses participant information can be found in our ‘general’ privacy notice here

The information that is required to be provided to participants under data protection legislation (GDPR and DPA 2018) is provided across both the ‘local’ and ‘general’ privacy notices.

The lawful basis that will be used to process your personal data is: ‘Public task’ for personal data.

Your personal data will be processed so long as it is required for the research project. If we are able to anonymise or pseudonymise the personal data you provide we will undertake this, and will endeavour to minimise the processing of personal data wherever possible.

If you are concerned about how your personal data is being processed, or if you would like to contact us about your rights, please contact UCL in the first instance at data-protection@ucl.ac.uk.

If you remain unsatisfied, you may wish to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Contact details, and details of data subject rights are available on the ICO website at: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-reform/overview-of-the-gdpr/individuals-rights/

Who is funding the research?

This research has been funded by a fellowship from the Wellcome Trust awarded to Dr Tobias Hauser.

How much data does it use?

Once downloaded and installed, the game specifications will be loaded from the server each time you decide to play a game. Both games and questionnaires are well optimized such that the loading of games and collection of your data should go smooth and will not require an extensive data usage.

Enabling your mobile data may include some costs. However, you can always change the settings so that data is only transmitted once you are using WiFi. Just change the settings in the ‘Profile’ menu.

I have another question…

If there’s anything else you’d like to know, please contact us:

– email at info@brainexplorer.net

– write to us at the Developmental Computational Psychiatry Group, Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, 10-12 Russell Square, London WC1B 5EH, United Kingdom

– visit www.brainexplorer.net