Memory and Attention Effects of Video Games

 Researching this topic has taught me that video games, in general, have about the same effects. There have been many mentions of attention, memory, rotating objects mentally, and faster reaction times. The article that interested me enough to blog about this week has to do with video games' memory and attention effects. A study was done with action video games. It was found that the participants had brain imaging done, finding that their ability to obtain attention resources from their brain was more automatic. They were able to filter out irrelevant information. Another study was done on non-action video games, the participants underwent neuropsychological tests that measured the following: processing, speed, attention, executive control, spatial working memory, and episodic memory. The group results were that the group showed improvement in controlled processing, attention, immediate and delayed recall memory. 

Information retrieved from the following Article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338843044_The_Effects_of_Video_Games_in_Memory_and_Attention 

Image from: https://unsplash.com/photos/BDKid0yJcAk 

Spatial Skills and Video Games

 Spatial skills are amongst the most important skills we have in our brains. It is responsible for motor behavior, track and manipulate objects. They also give individuals the ability to represent, organize, understand and navigate the environment. Once again, there is a theme in all the research articles I have found. Researchers keep wanting to find the difference between genders. In the article by Ian Spence and Jing Feng, they analyzed both genders and found both genders equally improved on their spatial abilities after playing games that are thought to boost spatial skills. An example of these games is Marble Madnedd, where the user guides a marble through many 3-D courses which include enemies and obstacle objects. There were fundamental processes observed by the researchers such as sensory proces, attentional process, visuomotor coordination and speed, mechanisms of learning, top-down control of lower level processing, and many others. There were also factors of motivation, emotion and gender differences. Overall, they found that video games indeed improve spatial skills through these processes. 

Article information and image from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1037/a0019491 

Project Background

 Bats have a bad reputation with the public, and therefore no one looks into them. Although, they play a significant role in ecological systems through many means like bat guano for fertilizer (Sakoui, 2020). Also, bats benefit the ecosystem through seed dispersal and pollination (Kasso, 2013), especially economically by reducing the billions spent on agricultural pesticides (Hoffmaster et al., 2016). Bats are beneficial to the ecological system by consuming numerous insects and reducing the need for chemical pesticide use, benefiting humans (Ducummon, n.d.). Video games are also popular in the culture of today. Although they have adverse effects on some, educational games can have more people engaged in learning material and becoming more knowledgeable. Due to the increased use of technology in present society, individuals should use it to make themselves more intelligent. The importance of bats research is that, ultimately, it has to conclude that their conservation is necessary; if they are at risk of extinction, humans are at risk of disrupting their ecological systems and harming the economy (Lawson, 2020). 

Image from: https://unsplash.com/photos/lfQyS-TnqEg 

Locked articles and mathematic performance

 Researching articles about video games in STEM has been hard because all good articles are locked, and I cannot use my phoenix college account to unlock them. I tried to find a way around them and I still could not find some but I did find articles on the benefits of video games. The one that stood out to me is titled "Computer Games for the Math Achievement of Diverse Students" by Sunha Kim and Mido Chang. This article summarizes a study done on students to test the performance of students, separated by gender, which computer games and those who do not. The male students who played computer games demonstrated higher performance than those who did not play computer games. On the other hand, a difference in the females in the study was not found in their performance. Also, another test was done on English-speaking students and ELL students. The English-speaking students who played daily games showed lower performance in daily math. The ELL students who played daily games, on the contrary, were able to learn English more easily. 

Article and Image below's Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/jeductechsoci.13.3.224.