UF researchers hope to find ways to improve and maintain the mental functions of older adults using something many college students are familiar with — video games.
The Research to Examine Videogame Interventions for Visual Attention study aims to assess whether an action video game can improve visual attention in adults.
Visual attention affects a person’s ability to perform tasks such as driving, reading medication labels or finding items in a pantry. Later in life, visual attention declines, but there may be a way to get some of that back.
In the study currently going on at UF, Patricia Belchior and Michael Marsiske are aiming to find a way to link the use of action video games, in this case “Crazy Taxi,” to the visual attentiveness of older adults.
Marsiske said “Crazy Taxi” is a simple game without complicated controls.
“That means that our older adults, all of whom are novice game players, can focus on actually ‘driving,’ and thereby getting visual attention practice,” he said.
The subjects of the study will be randomly assigned to three different groups. One group of people will play “Crazy Taxi” to practice their visual attention. The second group will play the PositScience game called InSight. The third group will not receive any visual attention training at all.
Subjects chosen to play “Crazy Taxi” will log about 64 hours of practice time during the approximated seven months they participate in the study.
