According to a study the April 2008 issue of the journal Psychology and Aging, senior citizens can improve their ability to switch tasks rapidly by playing "real time strategy video games." In this study, subjects who were approximately 70 years old, in good health, with good vision, and had little/no experience with electronic games were selected to learn and practice Rise of Nations, a real time strategy video game. After 23.5 hours of training and practice, the researchers discovered that the subjects' ability to switch tasks rapidly had improved in two ways: Their speed increased by 33% while their accuracy increased by 9%. The increase in speed was statistically significant with a p-value of 0.01 (Basak et al., p 772).
The speed of task switching was measured like this: Subjects viewed a single digit on top of a solid-colored background of blue or pink. "If the background was blue, participants used one hand to report as quickly as possible whether (the number) was high or low. If the background was pink, participants used their other hand to report as quickly as possible whether the number was odd or even" (Basak et al., p 768). Naturally, response times were faster when two consecutive digits were on top of the same colored background, since they didn't have to switch tasks. However, when the background color changed between two consecutive digits, subjects responded slower because they had to queue up the other set of instructions--i.e. they switched tasks. The difference between the faster and slower responses was calculated and called the task switching "cost." As subjects gained more experience with the video game, the difference in their response times decreased (because their slower responses got faster).
Having read this study as well as the others already discussed in this blog, I have begun to accept as fact that technology can be used to improve task switching competency. Now, among many other things, I wonder how many hours of training it would take before the benefits plateaued, how long the benefits last after training stops, and how task switching affects the quality of learning. I've also begun to wonder to what degree task switching competency will be important for success in the "real world" and how that importance could be quantified. One thing's certain: I've got a lot more research to do.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I wonder if video games could be used to help seniors with other types of cognitive abilities such as memory?
ReplyDeleteMJ
I have to agree that it seems as though practicing task switching is no different than practicing any other skill, especially a skill that one has already mastered such as speaking a foreign language, playing an instrument, programming, or typing.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be very interesting to relate task switching to success in a career. As that idea is so broad you would have to limit the populations being studied. Suppose you wanted to measure the impact of soldier performance based on task switching training? It is interesting that the study chose senior citizens. Did they indicate why they chose that population? Maybe because of their neutrality, or the possibility that senior citizens may have personal or societal pressures to task switch rapidly (as opposed to a soldier in the Army).
Hi Mark,
ReplyDeleteGood question. I'm inclined to think that it is possible. My post on Wednesday, March 18th pointed out a study showing that working memory can be improved through dual-task training. To me, it makes sense to predict that the more perceptions one's working memory processes, the more potential one has to convert them to long term memories. Also, in my post on Saturday, March 14th, I shared a study in which training helped senior citizens show greater improvement in dual-task performance than a group of college kids.
Taking those two studies together, I think it's reasonable to infer that video games would be effective in training senior citizens to improve other cognitive abilities in addition to dual-task performance.
Thanks for the question.
Michael Misha
Hi Trace,
ReplyDeleteYour comments were very thought provoking. I just read an article in the last three days about how increased dual-task capacity decreases the likelihood that a police officer will mistakenly shoot an unarmed person. I suppose that's one real-world example of career success related to task switching. I've also read a few anecdotes that mention cooks' and air traffic controllers' success depends on the ability to rapidly switch tasks and to hold lots of information in working memory.
The particular study to which my post referred came from the journal Psychology and Aging, so their audience includes gerontologists and the like, which are interested in helping improve the lives of the elderly. Also, I think the study's authors believe that senior citizens show an opportunity for improvement in the area of dual-task performance, so that wanted to see what could be done to help.
Thanks, as always, for your insight,
Michael Misha
To fix a blunder the sentence containing: "may have personal or societal pressures to task switch rapidly" should have said "may NOT have personal or societal pressures to task switch rapidly"
ReplyDelete