Neuroracer: Video Game Analysis

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There are also forms of therapies that help with brain activity and cognitive thinking. Mike Snider of USA Today wrote an article about parents using video games to help their children who have Attention Deficit Disorder. The use of the video games for treatment was prescribed by their psychologist. One child had received standard neurofeedback treatment in the past, but still had problems with memory. According to his mother, Janet Herlihey, he now has learned to use the focus skills he learned from gaming to focus better in school and in sports. Focusing on the video game has taught the child how to slow down and focus on tasks in his everyday life. Her other son had trouble focusing while trying to read, an activity he once loved to do. Now after using the video game therapy he is able to focus on the books and enjoy reading again.( Snider)

Triggering brain functions, “visual motor tracking” or maneuvering through obstacles, Reaction time and memory. The purpose of this game is to strengthen the mind as we get older. Supported by the article “Beginning in our late 40s and 50s, our working memory dims, and we lose the ability to juggle simultaneous tasks. It becomes harder to screen out distractions, to stay focused while reading or shopping. Processing speed — that is, the brain’s ability to react to stimuli — slows.”

Although it might seem wise to break immersion in all games, as Gotterbarn justly notes, immersion can have a positive influence too. Gotterbarn correctly states that "sometimes the impact [of immersion] is positive and useful" as social learning in videogames can give rise to "intrinsic motivation... so powerful that [players] are motivated to learn, and even search for solutions outside the game"(369-370) . Basically what he is saying is people can get so immersed in a game that their brain records the action as if it were actually being performed. I can personally attest to this, I used to play this game called Misamata which was about a scientist that washes up on a island with a plague and has to discover the cure for humanity and himself.

Ever since the first video game came out people have been inventing more and more realistic games and parents just keep on blaming games for the terrible decision their kids are making. In the book called From the Heart Land I found an interesting research finding published in Child Development “children seem to be able to process only one type of stimuli at a time.” This research finding just makes me think that games can be good because it helps their stimulus. First, we will talk about how games are not affecting the decisions the people are making. Second, we will talk about how playing games can benefit people. Finally, I will talk about serial killers that were affected by psychotic break down and not games.

Many people spend a fair amount of time on their computers, tablets, and smartphones playing games. So why not use it as an opportunity to exercise your brain? Brain training games are easy to do and offer a wide variety of simple puzzles that can be played for just a few minutes or a couple of hours at a time. They’re specifically designed to help sharpen the mind and ultimately may help players deter the development of cognitive diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s.

In 2012, Nouchi et al. conducted a study in which older adults had to play either a Nintendo brain training game called Brain Age or Tetris. The participants had to play their assigned game for 4 weeks 15 minutes per day. The aim of the study was to investigate the possible effects of a brain training game on the cognitive functioning of older adults. As expected, the results showed that both groups performed significantly better at playing their game during the last time playing compared to the first time playing. However, did the participants only get better at playing their game or was there more at play?

Gamboa, Camille. "What Types Of Video Games Improve Brain Function?". EurekAlert!. N.p., 2015. Web. 12 Feb.

In the first focus group some participants reported that they played cognitive games to keep their brains active but they did not play classes of games for other health benefits. A theme that emerged was the importance of social interaction as participants felt that loneliness and isolation were a risk factor with age. Participants were positive about gamification concepts such as rewards for completing stages within games.

Ever since I heard about Senior Projects from one of my friends, I have been extremely pumped about taking Senior Projects. Although Senior Projects came with a huge workload, it allowed me to enjoy my last year of High school because of the freedoms I was allowed to take in the class.

Whether it is remembering what groceries to buy, exercising, or multitasking, as human beings, age, daily tasks or activities to become more difficult to carry out. With technology significantly improving, it can become increasingly difficult for an aging adult to keep up with the steadily advancing world. Just as we maintain our heart health, maintenance of brain health in older adults are is important to society and everyday lives of individuals. Brain training, such as brain games, enhances the cognition and memory functions in older adults. By maintaining brain health, brain training can not only enhance cognitive functions but, can help positively transfer skills required to execute daily activities that require alertness, lack of

Recent studies into the effects of video games on sufferers of ADHD have revealed that they may in fact actually be very beneficial to these people. This composition will report on one such analysis and of how the discoveries of the experiment can be of benefit to ADHD sufferers. ADHD is a problematic condition for the people who suffer it and in recent years has rapidly been becoming more evidently common. The subject’s main avenue of treatment to date has been medication which has a degree of success but in some cases very little result. Reider stated “There appears to be a subset of patients who do not demonstrate a beneficial response to stimulants” (Fox and Reider, 1993). The discovery of a non-chemical treatment with few to no side effects would be a quantum breakthrough in this area.

They stated that the brain games have not shown a clear benefit so far in the study but they are not sure where the study really went wrong he thinks it is more of the way the participates went about the study. One overall finding was that people do not work the brain hard enough or over a long enough time period, “ it takes mental effort to practice to be able to see results” (Rebok). Rebok says if we can implement that long range, I think that there will be a big dividend eventually. Simons stated they did find a few good studies, which showed that brain games do help people get better at a specific task. He then gave the example of scanning baggage at an airport and looking for a knife. He says “ you get really, really good at spotting that knife” (Simons). Overall they got an even handed amount of results so some would say it would help and others would say it did not, I think for them to be able to say brain games helped they would need it to work for more than half of their participates.

I found a recent study that said that people could significantly improve their ability to multi-task after playing a specially designed driving video game called NeuroRacer.NeuroRacer is a video game that was designed by a team of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco led by Adam Gazzaley as a way to help with mental cognition, The game was released in 2013. Another study from researchers at the University of Rochester found that playing action-packed video games improved people’s ability to make quick decisions and ignore distractions like people on the road or cool cars ,Most important is your phone.

Multiple studies have shown that if “brain games” are used daily one can improve their performance in few tasks.