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

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改善老年人的认知，环境的哪些属性是关键的，并在老年人的干预中对这些属性进行实证测试。应用的输出将是针对老年人的一类认知游戏和一个新的社会计算环境的设计指南。两项干预将使用电子游戏来提高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），它包含了认知改善所必需的假设变量：新颖性、注意力需求和社会互动。在这个干预组将允许测量个人和这些变量的调节效应。测试前和测试后的能力测量将决定哪些变量或变量的组合最能改善老年人的认知和日常功能。第二阶段是使用干预1中的表现和偏好数据，最大限度地执行变量，以提高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，供其他开发者和研究人员使用，理想情况下，这将导致一种具有可靠有效性的新型“脑力游戏”。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。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的理论是由行为和神经学证据提出的，但这个项目代表了这些变量第一次被实证检验，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，所有这些领域都需要有效的认知训练干预的数据。研究结果将帮助那些目前对老年玩家的界面和游戏玩法需求知之甚少的设计师。这项研究通过发现老年人成功的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，可以产生世界性的影响，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、那些在地理上与他们的队列分开的老年人以及那些无法离开他们的家的老年人（所有服务不足的人群）使用。这个项目涉及大量的学生参与，为学生提供不同的指导机会，以及接触不同的方法。该项目将为学生提供发展心理学、技能习得和电子游戏设计方面的专业课程。

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.