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.
