Abstract
Age, gender, and education represent crucial variables in the assessment and interpretation of traditional neuropsychological measures as regards the executive functions (EF). Currently, traditional measures are showing limitations in capturing real life behaviors and new technologies, such as serious games, are allowing creating more real situations with higher ecological validity. In the present study, we applied a serious game approach to investigate individual variables-related differences in the EF assessment. 268 healthy subjects participated in the study, completing 14 tasks (6 standard tasks; 8 serious games) randomly presented. The results showed that younger participants completed tasks in less time than older and with higher correct answers. Furthermore, males registered shorter reaction times, while females showed higher percentages of correct answers. The university studies group obtained higher total score and correct answers than high school studies group. Finally, since the study involved technology, we divided the group in high and low use technology level, obtaining that participants with a lower level of use technologies reported higher latency times and lower correct answers in high order EF tasks than the group with higher level of use of technology. As the traditional measure, these findings suggest that individuals’ differences are critical variables to consider in the development of more ecological measures for the assessment of EFs.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Stuss, D.T., Alexander, M.P.: Executive functions and the frontal lobes: a conceptual view. Psychol. Res. 63(3–4), 289–298 (2000)
Diamond, A.: Executive functions. Ann. Rev. Psychol. 64, 135–168 (2013)
Chan, R.C., Shum, D., Toulopoulou, T., Chen, E.Y.: Assessment of executive functions: review of instruments and identification of critical issues. Arch. Clin. Neuropsychol. 23(2), 201–216 (2008)
Lezak, M.D.: The problem of assessing executive functions. Int. J. Psychol. 17(1–4), 281–297 (1982)
Lezak, M.D., Howieson, D.B., Loring, D.W., Fischer, J.S.: Neuropsychological Assessment. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2004)
Anderson, P.: Assessment and development of executive function (EF) during childhood. Child Neuropsychol. 8(2), 71–82 (2002)
Jurado, M.B., Rosselli, M.: The elusive nature of executive functions: a review of our current understanding. Neuropsychol. Rev. 17(3), 213–233 (2007)
Gladsjo, J.A., Schuman, C.C., Evans, J.D., Peavy, G.M., Miller, S.W., Heaton, R.K.: Norms for letter and category fluency: demographic corrections for age, education, and ethnicity. Assessment 6(2), 147–178 (1999)
Stricks, L., Pittman, J., Jacobs, D.M., Sano, M., Stern, Y.: Normative data for a brief neuropsychological battery administered to English-and Spanish-speaking community-dwelling elders. J. Int. Neuropsychol. Soc. 4(4), 311–318 (1998)
Beeri, M.S., et al.: Age, gender, and education norms on the CERAD neuropsychological battery in the oldest old. Neurology 67(6), 1006–1010 (2006)
Birch, S.A., Bloom, P.: Understanding children’s and adults’ limitations in mental state reasoning. Trends Cogn. Sci. 8(6), 255–260 (2004)
De Luca, C.R., et al.: Normative data from the CANTAB. I: development of executive function over the lifespan. J. Clin. Exp. Neuropsychol. 25(2), 242–254 (2003)
Craik, F.I., Salthouse, T.A.: The Handbook of Aging and Cognition. Psychology Press, London (2011)
Ostrosky-Solis, F., Ardila, A., Rosselli, M., Lopez-Arango, G., Uriel-Mendoza, V.: Neuropsychological test performance in illiterate subjects. Arch. Clin. Neuropsychol. 13, 645–660 (1998)
Ardila, A., Bertolucci, P.H., Braga, L.W., et al.: Illiteracy: the neuropsychology of cognition without reading. Arch. Clin. Neuropsychol. 25, 689–712 (2010)
Das, S.K., Banerjee, T.K., Mukherjee, C.S., et al.: An urban community-based study of cognitive function among non-demented elderly population in India. Neurol. Asia 11, 37–48 (2006)
Mathuranath, P.S., Cherian, J.P., Mathew, R., George, A., Alexander, A., Sarma, S.P.: Mini mental state examination and the Addenbrooke’s cognitive examination: effect of education and norms for a multicultural population. Neurol. India 55, 106–110 (2007)
Liu, K.P., Kuo, M.C., Tang, K.C., et al.: Effects of age, education and gender in the Consortium to Establish a Registry for the Alzheimer’s Disease (CERAD)-Neuropsychological assessment battery for Cantonese-speaking Chinese elders. Int. Psychogeriatr. 23(10), 1575–1581 (2011)
Van Hooren, S.A.H., Valentijn, A.M., Bosma, H., Ponds, R.W.H.M., Van Boxtel, M.P.J., Jolles, J.: Cognitive functioning in healthy older adults aged 64–81: a cohort study into the effects of age, sex, and education. Aging Neuropsychol. Cogn. 14(1), 40–54 (2007)
Messinis, L., Tsakona, I., Malefaki, S., Papathanasopoulos, P.: Normative data and discriminant validity of Rey’s verbal learning test for the Greek adult population. Arch. Clin. Neuropsychol. 22(6), 739–752 (2007)
Proust-Lima, C., Amieva, H., Letenneur, L., Orgogozo, J.M., Jacqmin-Gadda, H., Dartigues, J.F.: Gender and education impact on brain aging: a general cognitive factor approach. Psychol. Aging 23(3), 608 (2008)
Unger, R.K.: Toward a redefinition of sex and gender. Am. Psycholog. 34(11), 1085 (1979)
Zarghi, A., Zarindast, M.R.: Demographic variables and selective, sustained attention and planning through cognitive tasks among healthy adults. Basic Clin. Neurosci. 2(3), 58–67 (2011)
Bagherpoor, L.S.K., Akbar, A.: The influence of educational type (virtual and non-virtual) and gender on the executive functions (mental flexibility and selective attention) of students. Bull. Environ. Pharmacol. Life Sci. 2014(3), 360–367 (2014)
Chaytor, N., Schmitter-Edgecombe, M., Burr, R.: Improving the ecological validity of executive functioning assessment. Arch. Clin. Neuropsychol. 21(3), 217–227 (2006)
Spooner, D.M., Pachana, N.A.: Ecological validity in neuropsychological assessment: a case for greater consideration in research with neurologically intact populations. Arch. Clin. Neuropsychol. 21(4), 327–337 (2006)
Burgess, P.W., Alderman, N., Volle, E., Benoit, R.G., Gilbert, S.J.: Mesulam’s frontal lobe mystery re-examined. Restor. Neurol. Neurosci. 27(5), 493–506 (2009)
Chevignard, M., et al.: An ecological approach to planning dysfunction: script execution. Cortex 36(5), 649–669 (2000)
Barker, L.A., Andrade, J., Romanowski, C.A.J.: Impaired implicit cognition with intact executive function after extensive bilateral prefrontal pathology: a case study. Neurocase 10(3), 233–248 (2004)
Manchester, D., Priestley, N., Jackson, H.: The assessment of executive functions: coming out of the office. Brain Inj. 18(11), 1067–1081 (2004)
Fleming, T.M., et al.: Serious games and gamification for mental health: current status and promising directions. Front. Psychiatry 7, 215 (2017)
Andrade, L.H., et al.: Barriers to mental health treatment: results from the WHO World Mental Health surveys. Psychol. Med. 44(6), 1303–1317 (2014)
Fleming, T.M., et al.: Serious games for the treatment or prevention of depression: a systematic review (2014)
Miller, M.A., Fillmore, M.T.: The effect of word complexity on attentional bias towards alcohol-related words in adult drinkers. Addiction 105, 883–890 (2010)
Lang, P.J., Bradley, M.M., Cuthbert, B.N.: International affective picture system (IAPS): affective ratings of pictures and instruction manual. Technical report A-8. University of Florida, Gainesville (2008)
Fillmore, M.T., Rush, C.R., Hays, L.: Acute effects of cocaine in two models of inhibitory control: implications of non-linear dose effects. Addiction 101(132), 3–1332 (2006)
Stroop, J.R.: Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. J. Exp. Psychol. 18, 643–662 (1935)
Grant, D.A., Berg, E.: A behavioral analysis of degree of reinforcement and ease of shifting to new responses in a Weigl-type card-sorting problem. J. Exp. Psychol. 38(4), 404 (1948)
Culberston, W.C., Zillmer, E.A.: Tower of London-Drexel (TOLDX). Examiners’s Manual. Research Version. Multi-Health Systems Inc., Toronto (1999)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Ethics declarations
This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness funded project “Advanced Therapeutically Tools for Mental Health” (DPI2016-77396-R).
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Parra, E., de Juan Ripoll, C., Alcañiz Raya, M., Chicchi Giglioli, I.A. (2018). Individuals’ Variables in Cognitive Abilities Using a Narrative Serious Game. In: Göbel, S., et al. Serious Games. JCSG 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11243. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02762-9_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02762-9_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02761-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02762-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)