It has been suggested that video game training enhances cognitive functions in young and older adults. However, effects across studies are mixed. We conducted a meta-analysis to examine the hypothesis that training healthy older adults with video games enhances their cognitive functioning. The studies included in the meta-analysis were video game training interventions with pre- and posttraining measures. Twenty experimental studies published between 1986 and 2013, involving 474 trained and 439 healthy older controls, met the inclusion criteria. The results indicate that video game training produces positive effects on several cognitive functions, including reaction time (RT), attention, memory, and global cognition. The heterogeneity test did not show a significant heterogeneity (I(2) = 20.69%) but this did not preclude a further examination of moderator variables. The magnitude of this effect was moderated by methodological and personal factors, including the age of the trainees and the duration of the intervention. The findings suggest that cognitive and neural plasticity is maintained to a certain extent in old age. Training older adults with video games enhances several aspects of cognition and might be a valuable intervention for cognitive enhancement.
Age-related cognitive and brain declines can result in functional deterioration in many cognitive domains, dependency, and dementia. A major goal of aging research is to investigate methods that help to maintain brain health, cognition, independent living and wellbeing in older adults. This randomized controlled study investigated the effects of 20 1-h non-action video game training sessions with games selected from a commercially available package (Lumosity) on a series of age-declined cognitive functions and subjective wellbeing. Two groups of healthy older adults participated in the study, the experimental group who received the training and the control group who attended three meetings with the research team along the study. Groups were similar at baseline on demographics, vocabulary, global cognition, and depression status. All participants were assessed individually before and after the intervention, or a similar period of time, using neuropsychological tests and laboratory tasks to investigate possible transfer effects. The results showed significant improvements in the trained group, and no variation in the control group, in processing speed (choice reaction time), attention (reduction of distraction and increase of alertness), immediate and delayed visual recognition memory, as well as a trend to improve in Affection and Assertivity, two dimensions of the Wellbeing Scale. Visuospatial working memory (WM) and executive control (shifting strategy) did not improve. Overall, the current results support the idea that training healthy older adults with non-action video games will enhance some cognitive abilities but not others.
Previous research on cross-modal priming has used verbal stimuli presented to vision and audition. This study examined whether priming is modality specific and whether there are dissociations between several implicit and explicit memory measures when familiar objects are presented to vision and touch. The experiments showed significant priming between and within modalities. Experiment 1 showed similar presemantic priming between and within modalities. Experiment 2 found robust cross-modal priming using 2 different implicit memory tests: picture-fragment completion and object decision. However, priming was greater when pictures were presented at study and test than when visual or haptic objects were given at study and pictures were shown at test. Conversely, the study of objects haptically or visually enhanced free recall. Experiment 3 found that within-and cross-modal priming were both unaffected by study-test delay. The findings suggest that similar structural descriptions mediate object priming in vision and touch.
In this longitudinal intervention study with experimental and control groups, we investigated the effects of video game training on the visuospatial working memory (WM) and episodic memory of healthy older adults. Participants were 19 volunteer older adults, who received 15 1-h video game training sessions with a series of video games selected from a commercial package (Lumosity), and a control group of 20 healthy older adults. The results showed that the performance of the trainees improved significantly in all the practiced video games. Most importantly, we found significant enhancements after training in the trained group and no change in the control group in two computerized tasks designed to assess visuospatial WM, namely the Corsi blocks task and the Jigsaw puzzle task. The episodic memory and short-term memory of the trainees also improved. Gains in some WM and episodic memory tasks were maintained during a 3-month follow-up period. These results suggest that the aging brain still retains some degree of plasticity, and that video game training might be an effective intervention tool to improve WM and other cognitive functions in older adults.
Binaural auditory beats are a perceptual phenomenon that occurs when presenting separately to each ear two tones that slightly differ in their frequency. It has been suggested that binaural beats can influence cognition and mental states among others. The objective of this meta-analysis was to study the effect of binaural beats on memory, attention, anxiety, and analgesia. Twenty-two studies met our inclusion criteria for this meta-analysis. The results, based on 35 effect sizes, showed an overall medium, significant, consistent effect size (g = 0.45). Meta-regression results indicated that it does not seem to be necessary to mask binaural beats with white noise or pink noise in terms of effectiveness, obtaining similar effects with unmasked binaural beats. Moreover, the findings suggest that binaural-beat exposure before, and before and during the task produces superior results than exposure during the task. Time under exposure contributed significantly to the model indicating that longer periods are advisable to ensure maximum effectiveness. Our meta-analysis adds to the growing evidence that binaural-beat exposure is an effective way to affect cognition over and above reducing anxiety levels and the perception of pain without prior training, and that the direction and the magnitude of the effect depends upon the frequency used, time under exposure, and the moment in which the exposure takes place.
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