Video Games and Cognition: Video Games for Well-Being

Video Games for Well-Being: A Systematic Review on the Application of Computer Games for Cognitive and Emotional Training in the Adult Population

Federica Pallavicini, Ambra Ferrari, and Fabrizia Mantovani of the University of Milan
Edited by Carmen Juan

This paper was created to address the lack of research in relation to the cognitive effects (Cognitive effects being defined as including processing and reaction times, memory, and task-switching and multitasking) of video games (with an emphasis on not just focusing on action games, which was an issue found with a lot of other studies that only focused on such games) on adults, particularly in the context of cognitive training.

The paper went into detail in how it screened articles to review for data, using keywords to search various relevant articles in various academic databases, and further narrowing their criteria to reduce their original 1,423 results to 35.

The paper itself talks about previous research into how games (both commercial and non-commercial ie. Purpose made for research and testing purposes) have been used to measure and train aforementioned cognitive abilities. One notable example mentioned include Space Fortress (Donchin, 1989) the first non-commercial game made for research purposes, which was eventually adopted by the Israeli Air Force for training.

A lot of these studies on video games with cognitive functions have shown that video games can often improve cognitive abilities (particularly in older adults) (Stern et al., 2011).

The paper's findings concluded that based on these previous studies, video game training does have positive effects on both cognitive and emotional skills in people, especially young adults, the research including results from both non-commercial research games and commercial games.

    

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