HCC: Medium: Collaborative Research: Improving Older Adult Cognition: The Unexamined Role of Games and Social Computing Environments

HCC：媒介：协作研究：改善老年人认知：游戏和社交计算环境未经检验的作用

• 批准号: 0905127
• 负责人: Anne McLaughlin
• 金额: $ 77.09万
• 依托单位: North Carolina State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2013-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0905127&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: HCC; Medium; Collaborative; Research; Improving

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009(Public Law 111-5). The goals of this research project are to understand how variables within social computing environments improve older adult cognition, what properties of an environment are critical, and empirically test these properties in interventions with older adults. The applied output will be design guidelines for a class of cognitive games for older adults and a new social computing environment. Two interventions will be run using video games to improve older adult cognitive and everyday abilities. The first intervention will use a commercial game (Boomblox-Wii) that contains the hypothesized variables necessary for cognitive improvement: novelty, attentional demand, and social interaction. The groups in this intervention will allow measurement of the individual and moderating effects of these variables. Pre-test and post-test ability measures will determine which variables or combinations of variables most improve the cognition and everyday functioning of older adults. The second phase is to use performance and preference data from Intervention 1 to maximally implement the variables shown to most improve cognition and functioning in a game specifically for older adults. The process of design will result in a set of guidelines for cognitive interventions to be used by other developers and researchers, ideally leading to a new class of "brain games" with reliable effectiveness.These results will advance the knowledge and understanding of how cognitive training reduces age-related decline. The theory that social interaction can facilitate cognitive improvement by increasing effortful attention on a task is suggested by both behavioral and neurological evidence, but this project represents the first time these variables will be empirically tested, and the first intervention in a computing environment. Knowledge gained from this project touches the fields of cognitive aging, human-computer interaction, and social computing - all of which need data on effective cognitive training interventions. Results will aid designers who currently have little knowledge of the interface and game-play needs of older players.This research advances the understanding of age-related change and social interaction by discovering the crucial components of successful cognitive training for older adults. Studying these components in the context of social computing and virtual worlds allows for world-wide impact and use by physically isolated individuals. A social computing environment may be used by older adults in rural communities, those separated geographically from their cohort, and those unable to leave their homes (all under-served populations). This project involves significant student involvement, providing varied mentorship opportunities to the students as well as exposure to differing methodologies. Specialized coursework will result from this project in developmental psychology, skill acquisition, and video game design.

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。本研究项目的目标是了解社会计算环境中的变量如何提高老年人的认知能力，环境的哪些属性是至关重要的，并在老年人的干预措施中实证测试这些属性。应用的输出将是一类老年人认知游戏和一个新的社会计算环境的设计指南。两项干预措施将使用视频游戏来改善老年人的认知和日常能力。第一个干预将使用一个商业游戏（Boomblox-Wii），其中包含认知改善所需的假设变量：新奇，注意力需求和社会互动。这种干预措施中的小组将允许测量这些变量的个体和调节效应。测试前和测试后的能力测量将确定哪些变量或变量组合最能改善老年人的认知和日常功能。第二阶段是使用来自干预1的表现和偏好数据，最大限度地实施所示的变量，以最大限度地改善老年人在游戏中的认知和功能。设计过程将产生一套认知干预的指导方针，供其他开发人员和研究人员使用，理想情况下，将产生一种具有可靠有效性的新型“大脑游戏”。这些结果将促进认知训练如何减少与年龄相关的衰退的知识和理解。行为学和神经学证据都表明，社会互动可以通过增加对任务的努力注意力来促进认知改善，但这个项目代表了这些变量第一次进行经验测试，也是第一次在计算环境中进行干预。从这个项目中获得的知识涉及认知老化，人机交互和社会计算领域-所有这些都需要有效的认知训练干预数据。结果将帮助设计师目前对老年玩家的界面和游戏需求知之甚少，这项研究通过发现老年人成功认知训练的关键组成部分，促进了对年龄相关变化和社会互动的理解。在社会计算和虚拟世界的背景下研究这些组件，可以在世界范围内产生影响，并由物理上孤立的个人使用。社会计算环境可以由农村社区的老年人使用，这些人在地理上与他们的同龄人分开，以及那些无法离开家的人（所有服务不足的人群）。该项目涉及大量的学生参与，为学生提供各种指导机会以及接触不同的方法。专业课程将导致从这个项目在发展心理学，技能获取和视频游戏设计。