The xCIT team develops cognitive training video games for research (http://behaverse.org/cognitive_training.html). The goal is to understand what game features and training modes improve cognitive abilities.
Why do video games improve cognitive abilities? It has been shown that playing certain video games can have a positive impact on cognition, yet the underlying mechanisms behind these effects are not clear. We spoke to Dr Pedro CardosoLeite about his research into which features of video games help improve cognitive performance, which could then inform the development of new games designed to boost learning capacity. A large body
of evidence suggests that playing certain types of video games can have a positive impact on cognitive performance, and researchers are investigating how they can be applied in education and training. Work by Professor Daphne Bavelier and Professor Shawn Green a few years ago pointed to the potential of using video games in cognitive training. “A group of friends came to the lab and their performance on certain cognitive tests were way above those of normal people. They started to investigate, why did they perform so well? And they realised that they were part of a group that regularly played action video games. These were first or thirdperson shooter games,” explains Dr Pedro Cardoso-Leite, Associate Professor in the Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Luxembourg. This raises the question of why action video games have these effects, a topic Dr Cardoso-Leite is exploring in his research. “There are some features of these video games that people think are leading to these effects,” he outlines.
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These games are typically quite fastpaced and players have to make lots of decisions, while at the same time they need to distribute their attention. A player needs to monitor everything that’s happening in the virtual environment around them, but they might also have to rapidly switch from that mode of distributed attention to focus more intently on a particular location. “An enemy might be lurking somewhere for example, and then you would need to focus your gun and shoot. There’s also prediction involved – you want to behave unpredictably, and to predict the behaviour of your opponents,” says Dr Cardoso-Leite. It has been suggested that these features lead to improvements in attentional control, which Dr Cardoso-Leite says is central to many cognitive tasks. “One of the hallmarks of the attentional control system is the ability to focus your attention and not get distracted,” he explains. “Video games tend to be quite complex, and a player may be involved in multiple tasks in parallel operating at different timescales.”
Action video games A number of features or ingredients of action video games have been listed as possible causes for the positive impact of playing certain games on cognitive performance. However, it is unclear how to map those features to both theories in cognitive psychology and to actual game mechanics. Now researchers are looking to build a fuller picture. In Dr Cardoso-Leite’s lab, researchers are working on a theory of cognitive training and are aiming to identify experimentally which game features are effective in enhancing cognitive performance and learning capacity. “We create games that have properties we think are interesting from a theoretical point of view,” he outlines. By developing different versions of video games which include some of these ingredients and exclude others, researchers aim to identify which have a positive impact on cognitive performance. “We are trying to go from those features and theories to the development of alternative, well-controlled versions of video games, where some of the features are present
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or absent,” says Dr Cardoso-Leite. “We can then test those theories experimentally by asking different groups of people to train on those games and evaluate how training on each of those games impacts their cognitive abilities.” The wider aim here is to develop video training games that help improve cognitive performance, with researchers in Dr CardosoLeite’s lab working primarily with young adults. There are of course many open questions within the field of cognitive enhancement; the main challenge in cognitive training but also in education research is to achieve ‘transfer of learning’ which is an individual’s ability to apply the knowledge that they have acquired in a given context to new relevant situations. It’s not clear how long training needs to be to yield cognitive performance improvements. “Many different studies have been pulled together in meta-analysis, and the amount of time that researchers asked participants to play video games varied significantly, from a single hour right up to 50 hours or more,” says Dr CardosoLeite. “The minimum amount of training required to achieve a particular effect is not completely clear. It seems to depend on the effect.” A fairly small amount of training is required to change attentional performance
for example, in the order of 10 hours of training, whereas much more time is required to change perceptual abilities. Finally, if people are going to be encouraged to play a video game for long periods of time, it’s important that the game is engaging and immersive, which is not always the case with current training interventions. “When regular training or rehabilitation interventions are perceived as being dull then there’s a risk that people will drop out and not really engage. They’re less motivated to put the effort into improving,” explains Dr Cardoso-Leite. A number of game designers are working with Dr Cardoso-Leite in the project to address this issue. “They bring some of their expertise to try to make those games as engaging as possible, for example by including appealing visual elements,” he continues. “Immersion and engagement is a major objective for game designers and developers; it must take a bigger a role in cognitive training research.”
Skill level The games that Dr Cardoso-Leite and his colleagues are creating are adaptive, in the sense that the difficulty level changes to reflect the skill level of the individual player.
A number of studies have been conducted to assess the impact of these types of games on people with different levels of mathematical and cognitive skills, and they have been found to have positive effects. “For example, there was a study in Italy on children with dyslexia, which appeared to be mainly related to attention deficits. It was found that playing these action video games actually helped improve their reading abilities,” outlines Dr Cardoso-Leite. While so far he has worked mainly with young adults, Dr Cardoso-Leite is also interested in using these games with older groups in the population, although he acknowledges that some modifications may be necessary. “We would need to take into account people’s motor and cognitive abilities, and this might mean that games have to be simpler.” One of the current main training games is set in space for example, and while this may engage children and young adults, it is unlikely to be as appealing to older groups. These video games could also be used to improve cognitive skills in people with certain handicaps, another area that Dr Cardoso-Leite is investigating. “We are involved in a study with the Institute of Neuroscience in Paris – we
The xCIT team (http://xcit.org/) develops video games for research in cognitive science at the University of Luxembourg.
SCIENTIFICALLY VALIDATED DIGITAL SCIENTIFICALLY VALIDATED DIGITAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
Project Objectives
There is a great need for effective training interventions to enhance learning capacity and help people develop the skills they will need to thrive in the economy of the future. Regularly playing video games has been shown to lead to cognitive improvements, but the underlying mechanisms behind this are not fully understood. The aim in the project is to use a multidisciplinary approach to develop a deeper understanding of the mechanisms behind learning and transfer, which could aid the development of more personalised training interventions in future.
Project Funding
Pedro Cardoso-Leite is supported by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (ATTRACT/2016/ID/11242114/DIGILEARN)
Contact Details The Behaverse battery of cognitive tests (http://behaverse.org/cognitive_assessment.html) developed by the xCIT team, provides a means to assess many facets of people’s cognitive abilities and to scientifically test the impact of cognitive training interventions.
develop and implement the assessments for cognitive abilities in patients who have certain neurological diseases. This is a group that may benefit from cognitive training interventions,” he says. The main focus at this stage however is on building a deeper understanding of the mechanisms behind the cognitive improvements that have been observed, which could then inform the ongoing development of video games. “Which features of action video games lead to cognitive improvements? We make a range of measures before people train, and then again afterwards. We want to see what the profile of improvements looks like,” explains Dr Cardoso-Leite.
also be applied in the wider population to help people develop the skills that will be required in tomorrow’s employment market, in which there is likely to be a high premium on cognitive skills, another issue Dr CardosoLeite is addressing. “I’m also working with my colleagues at the University of Luxembourg, partner institutions, the Luxembourg National Research Fund and various stakeholders on setting up a national centre for excellence in research on education for the 21st century in Luxembourg,” he outlines. This is part of a shift away from a system where formal education ends at the age of 18 and people then enter the employment
There was a study in Italy on children with dyslexia, which appeared to be mainly related to attention deficits. It was found that playing these action video games actually helped improve their reading abilities. This research could have a significant societal impact. To some extent problems associated with old age - like falling over and bumping into things - are related to attentional control issues, while the same applies for driving. “Attention issues are a major factor in explaining driving accidents in older people. They start to have a more narrow focus and miss things that are happening in their surrounding environment. Helping to improve cognitive abilities and attentional control in older adults, keeping those processes active and essentially slowing down cognitive decline, would be a very positive outcome,” says Dr Cardoso-Leite. These games could
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market, towards one in which there is more of a focus on lifelong learning. As societies change so does the employment market, and people will need to acquire new skills throughout their lives as new technologies emerge, underlining the wider importance of Dr Cardoso-Leite’s research. “The cognitive training and assessments that we are developing with this project can also help address that societal challenge, in the sense that you can also provide people with cognitive training across the lifespan,” he says. “We are aiming to connect cognitive abilities and cognitive training with how people learn and perform in their jobs.”
Pedro Cardoso-Leite Associate Professor | ATTRACT Fellow Head of xCIT University of Luxembourg | FHSE | MSH Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Science 11, Porte des Sciences, 4366 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg E: pedro.cardosoleite@uni.lu W: http://xcit.org
Dr Pedro Cardoso-Leite
Dr Pedro Cardoso-Leite is an FNR ATTRACT fellow and Associate Professor in Cognitive Science at the University of Luxembourg, where he leads the xCIT research group (http://xcit.org). His research is interdisciplinary—combining psychology, game design, computer science and machine learning—and focuses on creating and exploiting digital technologies, such as video games, to assess and improve human learning.
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