1. Pilot: Customizing a Commercially Available Digital Game to Assess Cognitive Function William C. M. Grenhart, John F. Sprufera, Jason C. Allaire, & Anne Collins McLaughlin Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Gains Through Gaming Lab Procedure Testing took place in a testing room computers and paper and pencil. Participants began by filling out a demographic questionnaire followed by the cognitive tests. The StarCraft 2 tests were counterbalanced with the traditional tests. Each test was preceded with a practice round during which additional instruction was given if needed. Measures METHODSBACKGROUND  The activities involved in the game play of almost any commercial digital game requires reaction time, decision making, reasoning, spatial ability, memory, coordination, and planning, to name a few.  There is a strong link between cognitive abilities and commercial digital game  People who play digital game have faster reaction times, can track more objects simultaneously, and can multitask better Intervention studies have shown that playing digital games improves cognition.  However, it is difficult to isolate specific tasks the require specific cognitive abilities because you cannot typically experimentally control the game play of commercial games  The ability to do so would allow for: 1.Digital game tasks that can be used to assess a specific cognitive ability. 2.Develop interventions using commercially available games that target specific cognitive abilities.  Using StarCraft 2, the current study developed and validated specific in game tasks that test one of four cognitive abilities (i.e. working memory, selective attention, processing speed, visual discrimination).  Performance was similar for between the StarCraft 2 and traditional digit-symbol substitution and N-back tasks.  Intra-ability patterns were similar between the StarCraft 2 and traditional formats.  Video game usage did not impact performance on the StarCraft 2 tests.  Having only 30 participants limited the power of this study to find more significant findings  The minimum display time StarCraft 2 can show a stimuli is 1/16 sec. (62.5 ms) and most people can correctly identify a single target (UFOV task 1) with it displayed for only 17 ms (1 frame). This created a floor effect for the StarCraft 2 UFOV.  Some of the participants had difficulty understanding or properly seeing the stimuli on some of the StarCraft 2 test. This was more a failing of design than an hazard of the game itself.  Overall, testing cognition with customized, commercially available digital game was validated. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CONCLUSIONS & LIMITATIONS - Gains Through Gaming Lab at North Carolina University - GainsThroughGaming.org  Specific Aim 2: Correlation patterns between StarCraft 2 cognitive tests and traditional cognitive tests.  Specific Aim 3: Impact of video game usage on performance on StarCraft 2 cognitive tests. PARTICIPANTS The sample consisted of 31 undergraduate psychology students  Mean age of 19 years (SD = 1.37; range = 18 - 23 years)  35.5% Female  Participants were given course credit for participating in the study  Specific Aim 1: Compared performance between StarCraft 2 cognitive tests and traditional cognitive tests. RESULTS  The StarCraft 2 tasks were developed using the StarCraft 2 Map Editor.  Using editor nearly every aspect of the game experience can be altered.  The editor contains every art assets, animations, and game functions used in the official game and many that are not.  The programing in editor resembles a very high level and simplified object oriented programing language.  Design for the StarCraft2 tests closely mimicked the traditional tests, differences include:  Number Comparison: Units act in the place of numbers. Participants choose either “same” or “different” rather than only choosing “different” when appropriate in order to prompt the next trial.  Digit-Symbol Substitution: In place of numbers and symbols, buildings and units were used. Rather than drawing symbols, participants selected the corresponding unit from an array of the available options that appeared beneath the trial building.  N-Back: Air ships acted as the target stimuli. They appeared, flew across the screen and then disappeared after a standard duration.  UFOV: After choosing the direction of the peripheral target, there was a short animation to reveal the correct location. DEVELOPMENT OF STARCRAFT 2 TASKS 1)Determine if performance on the StarCraft 2 cognitive tests correlates with performance on the traditional cognitive tests. 2)Determine if the similarities exist between the StarCraft 2 and traditional formats in the pattern of relationship between the different tests 3)Determine whether video game usage had an effect on performance on the StarCraft 2 tests. SPECIFIC AIMS Table 1. Correlations Between StarCraft 2 Number Comparison and Traditional. StarCraft 2 Traditional Total Speed.24 Response Time-.25 Accuracy.12 Note: ^p <.10. *p <.05. **p <.01. ***p <.001 Table 2. Correlations Between StarCraft2 Digit-Symbol Substitution and Traditional. StarCraft 2Traditional Total Speed.43* Response Time -.42* Total Correct.43* Accuracy.11 Note: ^p <.10. *p <.05. **p <.01. ***p <.001 Table 3. Correlations Between StarCraft 2 N-Back and Traditional. SC2 N-BackHitsFalse AlarmsRatio Hits.20-.11.23 False Alarms.34^.33^-.20 Ratio-.20-.38*.34^ Note: ^p <.10. *p <.05. **p <.01. ***p <.001 Table 4. Correlations between StarCraft 2 UFOV and Traditional. SC2 UFOVTask 1Task 2Task 3 Task 1 Threshold-.05.01-.03 Task 1 Score.07.04-.04 Task 2 Threshold.21-.07-.06 Task 2 Score-.34-.16.06 Task 3 Threshold-.12.11-.02 Task 3 Score.10.14.07 Note: ^p <.10. *p <.05. **p <.01. ***p <.001. Table 5. Correlations of Cognitive Tests Within Format StarCraft 2 Tests Num. Comp. DSSN-Back hitsN-Back F/AN-Back Ratio DSS.35^ N-Back hits.34^.38* N-Back F/A.51**.04.24 N-Back Ratio-.27.20.40*-.79*** UFOV 2 + 3.24.15.18.31-.18 Traditional Tests Num. Comp. DSSN-Back hitsN-Back F/AN-Back Ratio DSS.50** N-Back hits-.16-.07 N-Back F/A-.23-.29.38* N-Back Ratio.14.26.06-.90*** UFOV 2 + 3-.01.16-.03-.02-.03 Note: ^p <.10. *p <.05. **p <.01. ***p <.001. Highlight =similar significance between formats. Table 6.Performance Differences Between Gamers and Non-Gamers. Variable GamerNon-Gamert-test M (SD) t Num. Comp.15.14 (5.27)17.61 (6.53)-.91 DSS26.57 (8.75)18.75 (14.35)1.36 N-Back-5.29 (1.80)-6.35 (2.47)1.05 UFOV0.25 (.11)0.20 (.06)1.46 Note: ^p <.10. *p <.05. **p <.01. ***p <.001. Table 7. Correlations Between Performances and Hours per Week of Video Games Played. VariableHours M(SD)5.94 (7.52) Num. Comp.-.29 DSS.07 N-Back.20 UFOV.13 Note: ^p <.10. *p <.05. **p <.01. ***p <.001. TestAbility Tested Traditional: Number Comparison (paper-and- pencil) Processing Speed Digit -Symbol Substitution (paper-and-pencil) Processing Speed/Memory Inquisit N-Back (N1, N2, N3) Working Memory Useful Field of View (UFOV, touch screen) Attention StarCraft 2: Unit Comparison Processing Speed Unit-Building Substitution Processing Speed/Memory N-Back (N1, N2) Working Memory UFOV Attention