--Original published at WilliamsCollegeBlog
One of the big topics surrounding the
generations today is the attention span of everyone in daily lives. A large
issue comes with children diagnosed with the attention problem Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which affect about 1 in every 20
children. It is scary how easily our attention can flip from one serious matter
to the latest email popping up on the screen. Cell phones and any other mobile
device has become part of a person’s life and will not go anywhere without it.
This idea of having multiple screens in front of a person became a study too
good not to dive deeper into. A group of researchers from Cambridge University,
led by Barbara Sahakian, decided to look into how we could use mobile devices
to enhance one’s attention span and keep them on task.
The main method for looking at such
a study was designing an application where players would have to remember
certain patterns or look for sequences in a list of numbers. The game, Decoder,
was invented by the research team and requires concentration in order to
complete a level. As people grow, the part of the brain responsible for
concentration and attention is meant to grow and help people be adults. Decoder
is supposed to help sustain such attention and allow for motivation amongst
For the researchers to get accurate
results, they went out and setup an experiment. Seventy-five young adults were
recruited from the local Cambridge area based on what the researchers defined
as healthy and young. They were considered healthy based on psychiatric and
ADHD tests. The experiment was carried out by randomly assigning the
participants to three different groups, allowing twenty-five people per group.
One group was given the task of playing the Decoder game, another to play the
game Bingo, and the last group played no game at all and carried their lives
out normally. The last group was considered the control group and was used as a
baseline for the results of the other two groups. Bingo was used because of its
similar stimulus but does not give the same training for attention. The
perimeters for the two groups playing a game was allotted to eight 1-hour
sessions of gameplay over a 4-week span.
After each session of gameplay
those two groups were asked to rate their experiences based on four levels of
criteria. Those being alertness, enjoyment, motivation, and positive mood. At
the end of the 4 weeks, all seventy-five participants were given a test to
measure the outcomes. Over the eight sessions there was a significant
difference between the Decoder and Bingo group in terms of all four groups. Two
other tests, the CANTAB Rapid Visual Information Processing Test (RVP) and
Trail Making Test (TMT), were given to assess sustained attention by completing
a task requiring a certain level of awareness and concentration. The RVP test
tested a participant’s ability to react to a certain sequence while the TMT
looked at the response time and completion of test.
The experiment came out as a
success, with the results concluding the original thought. While playing the
game Decoder, attention and concentration showed improvement in comparison to
the other two groups. The experiment used participants considered to be
healthy, but now there is possibilities to achieve improvement for children and
adults that suffer from ADHD. People who already have poor attention abilities
and get easily distracted have shown improvement when using the game Decoder.
The future for these studies is endless. The success of the first experiment showed good improvement and the research behind ADHD patients shows promising results. People who suffer from concussions and traumatic brain injuries are also able to benefit from games like Decoder because they have impaired sustained attention. The cognitive training is huge and will be able to allow large advancements in this field.
One of the biggest challenges I
found while writing this article was keeping the information concise and not
adding too much detail to a subject when details were not necessary. Most of
research article brought up terminology from neuroscience and the normal reader
would not understand. Keeping this in mind, determining what I needed in the
article itself was not difficult. I believe that the original article did a
good job describing the experiment without using all the terminology and it
helped keep me in line when writing. While writing, I knew I had to keep the 5
critical questions in the back of my mind and consider what the original did.
The purpose is to make the paper make sense to whoever is reading, eve though
would not be looking to make sure those questions are included.
In the original article, not all
the 5 critical questions were addressed, and it made for a little bit of
confusion on my part. The one they missed was talking about how they
operationalized their variable. I would believe that is one of the most
important questions to answer in the beginning. As I was referencing the
original, I made sure to include the important details that they forgot to
include. Writers are known for adding a bunch of extra words to make themselves
sound better and it was obvious. There was a lot of generalization and
assumptions about the research that should not happened. After reading the
research, I made sure to make those distinct differences. Since the original
article used many of the critical questions, it was rather simple finding a way
to incorporate the same ones into my article. Questions involving the selection
of participants and how they were assigned were straight forward and clear
questions to answer in the article. The use of causal claims is important since
it secures a sense of validity for the research itself. Keeping all those
questions in the back of my mind, made for an easy time writing this article.
After finishing this project, there was a lot to learn about journalism. A main takeaway for me was how generalizing is a large part of making an article sound well written. Obviously not all readers are going to be as skilled as noticing when a piece of information is missing so generalizing is the key for most writers. Once we got the scholarly article that the pop culture article was written from, the level of writing had gone down. It is once again a key factor of generalizing. Journalism is great for creating a new story based on original concepts. Audiences do not want to read about statistics relating to a study; rather they want to hear the story behind it and why they should be reading anyways. If the audience is captivated by the information, writers know it is a good piece of work.
Avramova, Nina. “This brain training app may help you stay focused.” CNN. Cable News Network, 21 Jan. 2019. Web. Accessed on 28 Jan. 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/21/health/brain-training-app-focus-attention-study-intl/index.html
Savulich, George, et al. “Improvements in Attention Following Cognitive Training With the Novel ‘Decoder’ Game on an iPad.” Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, vol. 13, no. 2, doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00002. file:///C:/Users/wscho/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe/TempState/Downloads/For%20Will%20S%20(3).pdf