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A new adaptive videogame for training attention and executive functions: design principles and initial validation

A growing body of evidence suggests that action videogames could enhance a variety of cognitive skills and more specifically attention skills. The aim of this study was to develop a novel adaptive videogame to support the rehabilitation of the most common consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI)...

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Autores principales: Montani, Veronica, De Filippo De Grazia, Michele, Zorzi, Marco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4026745/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24860529
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00409
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author Montani, Veronica
De Filippo De Grazia, Michele
Zorzi, Marco
author_facet Montani, Veronica
De Filippo De Grazia, Michele
Zorzi, Marco
author_sort Montani, Veronica
collection PubMed
description A growing body of evidence suggests that action videogames could enhance a variety of cognitive skills and more specifically attention skills. The aim of this study was to develop a novel adaptive videogame to support the rehabilitation of the most common consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI), that is the impairment of attention and executive functions. TBI patients can be affected by psychomotor slowness and by difficulties in dealing with distraction, maintain a cognitive set for a long time, processing different simultaneously presented stimuli, and planning purposeful behavior. Accordingly, we designed a videogame that was specifically conceived to activate those functions. Playing involves visuospatial planning and selective attention, active maintenance of the cognitive set representing the goal, and error monitoring. Moreover, different game trials require to alternate between two tasks (i.e., task switching) or to perform the two tasks simultaneously (i.e., divided attention/dual-tasking). The videogame is controlled by a multidimensional adaptive algorithm that calibrates task difficulty on-line based on a model of user performance that is updated on a trial-by-trial basis. We report simulations of user performance designed to test the adaptive game as well as a validation study with healthy participants engaged in a training protocol. The results confirmed the involvement of the cognitive abilities that the game is supposed to enhance and suggested that training improved attentional control during play.
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spelling pubmed-40267452014-05-23 A new adaptive videogame for training attention and executive functions: design principles and initial validation Montani, Veronica De Filippo De Grazia, Michele Zorzi, Marco Front Psychol Psychology A growing body of evidence suggests that action videogames could enhance a variety of cognitive skills and more specifically attention skills. The aim of this study was to develop a novel adaptive videogame to support the rehabilitation of the most common consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI), that is the impairment of attention and executive functions. TBI patients can be affected by psychomotor slowness and by difficulties in dealing with distraction, maintain a cognitive set for a long time, processing different simultaneously presented stimuli, and planning purposeful behavior. Accordingly, we designed a videogame that was specifically conceived to activate those functions. Playing involves visuospatial planning and selective attention, active maintenance of the cognitive set representing the goal, and error monitoring. Moreover, different game trials require to alternate between two tasks (i.e., task switching) or to perform the two tasks simultaneously (i.e., divided attention/dual-tasking). The videogame is controlled by a multidimensional adaptive algorithm that calibrates task difficulty on-line based on a model of user performance that is updated on a trial-by-trial basis. We report simulations of user performance designed to test the adaptive game as well as a validation study with healthy participants engaged in a training protocol. The results confirmed the involvement of the cognitive abilities that the game is supposed to enhance and suggested that training improved attentional control during play. Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-05-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4026745/ /pubmed/24860529 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00409 Text en Copyright © 2014 Montani, De Filippo De Grazia and Zorzi. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Montani, Veronica
De Filippo De Grazia, Michele
Zorzi, Marco
A new adaptive videogame for training attention and executive functions: design principles and initial validation
title A new adaptive videogame for training attention and executive functions: design principles and initial validation
title_full A new adaptive videogame for training attention and executive functions: design principles and initial validation
title_fullStr A new adaptive videogame for training attention and executive functions: design principles and initial validation
title_full_unstemmed A new adaptive videogame for training attention and executive functions: design principles and initial validation
title_short A new adaptive videogame for training attention and executive functions: design principles and initial validation
title_sort new adaptive videogame for training attention and executive functions: design principles and initial validation
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4026745/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24860529
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00409
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