Gamification of Life: Playing Computer Games to Learn, Train, and Improve Cognitively

This paper describes various ways in which computer games may be used throughout life to achieve goals such as improved reaction time, reduced memory loss, or improved understanding of subject-related concepts. It also describes project conducted in our research lab, where we work on finding ways to measure and potentially improve children’s cognitive processing (e.g., visual, auditory, and conceptual) through playing computer games. Our goals are to find the kind of cognitive effects, both major and minor, that specific computer games in our repository may have on children; find ways to evaluate a child’s performance during play, taking into account the child’s demographics, the gaming scores achieved, and time spent playing; relate the characteristics of the games and the child’s performance in play to possible strengths and weaknesses in the child’s cognitive processing; and to recommend remediation, in terms of the types of games that may be useful for the child to play next. Present state of our work is described, together with our short term and long term plans. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2013.v3n8p8