scholarly journals Perceptual, Attentional, and Executive Functioning After Real-Time Strategy Video Game Training: Efficacy and Relation to In-Game Behavior

Author(s):  
Paweł Dobrowolski ◽  
Maciek Skorko ◽  
Monika Myśliwiec ◽  
Natalia Kowalczyk-Grębska ◽  
Jakub Michalak ◽  
...  

AbstractRecent meta-analyses and meta-analytic reviews of most common approaches to cognitive training broadly converge on describing a lack of transfer effects past the trained task. This also extends to the more recent attempts at using video games to improve cognitive abilities, bringing into question if they have any true effects on cognitive functioning at all. Despite this, video game training studies are slowly beginning to accumulate and provide evidence of replicable improvements. Our study aimed to train non-video game playing individuals in the real-time strategy video game StarCraft II in order to observe any subsequent changes to perceptual, attentional, and executive functioning. Thirty hours of StarCraft II training resulted in improvements to perceptual and attentional abilities, but not executive functioning. This pattern of results is in line with previous research on the more frequently investigated “action” video games. By splitting the StarCraft II training group into two conditions of “fixed” and “variable” training, we were also able to demonstrate that manipulating the video game environment produces measurable differences in the amount of cognitive improvement. Lastly, by extracting in-game behavior features from recordings of each participant’s gameplay, we were able to show a direct correlation between in-game behavior change and cognitive performance change after training. These findings highlight and support the growing trend of more finely detailed and methodologically rigorous approaches to studying the relationship between video games and cognitive functioning.

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Geslin ◽  
Laurent Jégou ◽  
Danny Beaudoin

Classifying the many types of video games is difficult, as their genres and supports are different, but they all have in common that they seek the commitment of the player through exciting emotions and challenges. Since the income of the video game industry exceeds that of the film industry, the field of inducting emotions through video games and virtual environments is attracting more attention. Our theory, widely supported by substantial literature, is that the chromatic stimuli intensity, brightness, and saturation of a video game environment produce an emotional effect on players. We have observed a correlation between the RGB additives color spaces, HSV, HSL, and HSI components of video game images, presented ton=85participants, and the emotional statements expressed in terms of arousal and valence, recovered in a subjective semantic questionnaire. Our results show a significant correlation between luminance, saturation, lightness, and the emotions of joy, sadness, fear, and serenity experienced by participants viewing 24 video game images. We also show strong correlations between the colorimetric diversity, saliency volume, and stimuli conspicuity and the emotions expressed by the players. These results allow us to propose video game environment development methods in the form of a circumplex model. It is aimed at game designers for developing emotional color scripting.


2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (6S) ◽  
pp. 1800-1809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel J. Cler ◽  
Talia Mittelman ◽  
Maia N. Braden ◽  
Geralyn Harvey Woodnorth ◽  
Cara E. Stepp

Purpose Video games provide a promising platform for rehabilitation of speech disorders. Although video games have been used to train speech perception in foreign language learners and have been proposed for aural rehabilitation, their use in speech therapy has been limited thus far. We present feasibility results from at-home use in a case series of children with velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD) using an interactive video game that provided real-time biofeedback to facilitate appropriate nasalization. Method Five participants were recruited across a range of ages, VPD severities, and VPD etiologies. Participants completed multiple weeks of individual game play with a video game that provides feedback on nasalization measured via nasal accelerometry. Nasalization was assessed before and after training by using nasometry, aerodynamic measures, and expert perceptual judgments. Results Four participants used the game at home or school, with the remaining participant unwilling to have the nasal accelerometer secured to his nasal skin, perhaps due to his young age. The remaining participants showed a tendency toward decreased nasalization after training, particularly for the words explicitly trained in the video game. Conclusion Results suggest that video game–based systems may provide a useful rehabilitation platform for providing real-time feedback of speech nasalization in VPD. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5116828


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 29-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.V. Bogacheva ◽  
A.E. Voiskounsky

The article is aimed at analysis of current studies of the link between video games experience and creativity. The impact of video game playing on the psychological specificity of gamers has repeatedly become a subject of many studies, though higher-level cognitive abilities, such as creativity, were rarely the subject of interest, remaining unexplored in the context of video games. Contrary to the earlier predictions that the increased amount of «readymade» visual information will reduce the imaginative ability, most of the current works show positive links between some types of creativity (in particular — visual) and playing video games. The latter becomes not only a source of inspiration but also a platform for creative realization. Many authors draw attention to possible negative aspects of creativity, in particular, the possibility of its antisocial applications. In this regard, the importance of studying the aggressiveness and empathy of computer players is increasing but the research data in this area is particularly contradictory.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 198-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam M. Large ◽  
Benoit Bediou ◽  
Sezen Cekic ◽  
Yuval Hart ◽  
Daphne Bavelier ◽  
...  

Over the past 30 years, a large body of research has accrued demonstrating that video games are capable of placing substantial demands on the human cognitive, emotional, physical, and social processing systems. Within the cognitive realm, playing games belonging to one particular genre, known as the action video game genre, has been consistently linked with demands on a host of cognitive abilities including perception, top-down attention, multitasking, and spatial cognition. More recently, a number of new game genres have emerged that, while different in many ways from “traditional” action games, nonetheless seem likely to load upon similar cognitive processes. One such example is the multiplayer online battle arena genre (MOBA), which involves a mix of action and real-time strategy characteristics. Here, a sample of over 500 players of the MOBA game League of Legends completed a large battery of cognitive tasks. Positive associations were observed between League of Legends performance (quantified by participants’ in-game match-making rating) and a number of cognitive abilities consistent with those observed in the existing action video game literature, including speed of processing and attentional abilities. Together, our results document a rich pattern of cognitive abilities associated with high levels of League of Legends performance and suggest similarities between MOBAs and action video games in terms of their cognitive demands.


Author(s):  
Martina De Castro ◽  
Martina Marsano ◽  
Umberto Zona ◽  
Fabio Bocci

The authors of this essay analyze the educational opportunities offered by video games by experimenting with an unplugged design, carried out within the framework of a Laboratory of Educational Technologies at the Degree Course in Primary Education Sciences at. The aim was to enable students, future teachers, to build, in teams, a video game environment that could be reproduced even in the absence of the digital devices on which it is usually implemented and through which it can be reproduced. This last circumstance can occur in many school complexes, unfortunately still lacking adequate structures and instruments. The educational and pedagogical mission of the Laboratory was also to allow future teachers to experiment in a protected environment, the university one, the video game principles applicable even in disadvantaged class contexts. The educational objective was to ensure that the students involved in the design of the game master the philosophy of gamification, so that they could take advantage of it wisely and consciously in their future classes.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Quiroga ◽  
F. J. Román ◽  
J. De La Fuente ◽  
J. Privado ◽  
R. Colom

AbstractThis paper reviews the use of video games for measuring intelligence differences and reports two studies analyzing the relationship between intelligence and performance on a leisure video game. In the first study, the main focus was to design an Intelligence Test using puzzles from the video game. Forty-seven young participants played “Professor Layton and the curious village”® for a maximum of 15 hours and completed a set of intelligence standardized tests. Results show that the time required for completing the game interacts with intelligence differences: the higher the intelligence, the lower the time (d = .91). Furthermore, a set of 41 puzzles showed excellent psychometric properties. The second study, done seven years later, confirmed the previous findings. We finally discuss the pros and cons of video games as tools for measuring cognitive abilities with commercial video games, underscoring that psychologists must develop their own intelligence video games and delineate their key features for the measurement devices of next generation.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathieu Muratet ◽  
Patrice Torguet ◽  
Jean-Pierre Jessel ◽  
Fabienne Viallet

Video games are part of our culture like TV, movies, and books. We believe that this kind of software can be used to increase students' interest in computer science. Video games with other goals than entertainment, serious games, are present, today, in several fields such as education, government, health, defence, industry, civil security, and science. This paper presents a study around a serious game dedicated to strengthening programming skills. Real-Time Strategy, which is a popular game genre, seems to be the most suitable kind of game to support such a serious game. From programming teaching features to video game characteristics, we define a teaching organisation to experiment if a serious game can be adapted to learn programming.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dario Maggiorini ◽  
Laura Anna Ripamonti ◽  
Federico Sauro

Video games are (also) real-time interactive graphic simulations: hence, providing a convincing physics simulation for each specific game environment is of paramount importance in the process of achieving a satisfying player experience. While the existing game engines appropriately address many aspects of physics simulation, some others are still in need of improvements. In particular, several specific physics properties of bodies not usually involved in the main game mechanics (e.g., properties useful to represent systems composed by soft bodies), are often poorly rendered by general-purpose engines. This issue may limit game designers when imagining innovative and compelling video games and game mechanics. For this reason, we dug into the problem of appropriately representing soft bodies. Subsequently, we have extended the approach developed for soft bodies to rigid ones, proposing and developing a unified approach in a game engine: Sulfur. To test the engine, we have also designed and developed “Escape from Quaoar,” a prototypal video game whose main game mechanic exploits an elastic rope, and a level editor for the game.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fidaa Almomani ◽  
Murad O. Al-momani ◽  
Soha Garadat ◽  
Safa Alqudah ◽  
Manal Kassab ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Cognitive abilities like language, memory, reasoning, visualization, and perceptual functioning shape human action and are considered critical to the successful interaction with the environment. Alternatively, hearing loss can disrupt a child’s ability to communicate, and negatively impact cognitive development. Cochlear implants (CI) restore auditory input thereby supporting communication and may enhance cognitive performance. This study compares general cognitive development after cochlear implantation (2017–2019) in two groups of Jordanian children implanted earlier (age:4–6 years, N = 22) and later (7–9 years, N = 16) to the development of randomly selected normal hearing peers (N = 48). Design Visualization, reasoning, memory, and attention were assessed using the Leiter-R scale at baseline (before implantation), 8 months and 16 months post implantation for children with hearing loss. Same times of testing (baseline, 8 months and 16 months) were used for normal hearing peers. Results Over the 16-month period, the cognitive improvement of 4–6-year-old deaf children was greater than that of their normal hearing peers on the scales of visualization (5.62 vs. 4.40), reasoning (2.53 vs. 2.38) and memory (17.19 vs. 11.67). while the improvement of 7–9-year-old was less major than that of their normal hearing peers on all scales. Conclusions These results suggest that CI not only enhances communication skills but may improve cognitive functioning in deaf children. However, the extent of this improvement was dependent on age at intervention; current results demonstrated that the children received CI at young ages had better cognitive improvements.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Justyna Janik

The aim of the article is to analyse the phenomenon of ghost characters in video games from the perspective of Jacques Derrida’s concept of hauntology, and to use this as the starting point for a hauntological engagement with the video game object’srelationship with its own past. The paper will investigateghostly figuresand their spectral status inside the video game environment, as well as their uncertain hauntological status as both fictional bygone souls and digital in-game objects.On the basis of this analysis of ghostly figures in video game environments, I draw a line between the past of the fictional world and the past of the game world, and examine what happens when they overlap.The dual status of the in-game ghost will thereby serve to metonymically anchor an investi-gation into the duality of the game as a whole, as both fiction and digital materiality, and of the dif-ferent dimensions of the past that exist in between these two levels of the game object.


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