Evaluation of a Cognitive Training Program for Older Adults with Mild to Moderate Cognitive Decline

Older adults often experience varying levels of cognitive decline. Several interventions intended to help slow the effects of cognitive decline have been studied, including cognitive training. Cognitive training involves engaging individuals, typically in a group setting, in exercises that target specific cognitive domains, such as attention, perceptual speed, memory, language, and executive functioning. Literature on cognitive training provides mixed support for its efficacy. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether a manualized, in-person cognitive training program for individuals with mild to moderate cognitive decline would lead to an improvement in cognitive performance. The program targeted six cognitive domains and was administered for 12 weeks at a local residential facility for retired nuns. Participants were assessed before the cognitive training course, after the course, and at a 12-week follow-up period. The results of this study did not support the use of cognitive training for improving functioning on most domains, but participants did see improvement on some assessments intended to measure the domains of global cognitive functioning, attention/concentration, working memory, visual memory, and visual/spatial skills. However, this study had some crucial limitations, such as having a very small, homogeneous sample size and thus, definitive conclusions should not be drawn from these findings

An Unwelcome Intrusion? Player Responses to Survey Research Recruitment on the World of Warcraft Forums

Internet discussion forums provide convenient opportunities to recruit survey participants, but how do the everyday users of these sites feel about such research requests? Using the official forums of the popular Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft (WoW) as a site of inquiry, this article investigates interactions between researchers and potential research participants. Using WoW, a frequently researched gaming community as a case study, I discuss player reactions to the 163 survey requests posted to the WoW forums between December 2010 and April 2015. In particular I outline the concerns raised by forum participants (including fears of account theft and critiques of survey design) and provide evidence this particular online community is suffering from survey fatigue. After highlighting these points of tension between players and researchers, I conclude with a set of suggested best practices for future interactions with this particular online community

To Play or Not to Play: Non/Participation in Eve Online

This dissertation addresses a gap in the academic study of digital games whereby investigations remain focused on current players and the experiences of former or non-players are rarely accounted for. Using EVE Online (EVE), a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) known for its difficult learning curve and homogenous community as a case study, I conducted an investigation of who does/does not play this particular game and their stated reasons for playing or not. I argue that while EVE is positioned in the MMOG market as a sandbox style game where in-game activities are only limited by a players imagination, in reality only a very particular type of play (and player) is publically acknowledged by EVEs developer (CCP Games), the gaming enthusiast press, and academics investigations of this game, emphasizing just how little is known about who plays EVE beyond the stereotypical imagined player. Drawing on literature from leisure studies to articulate a framework for exploring barriers/constraints to gameplay and theoretically informed by feminist theories of technology, I conducted an Internet-based survey to capture the thoughts and experiences of current, former, and non-EVE players. A total of 981 participants completed the survey. In my analysis of open-ended responses, I found that current players described the game in a way that emphasized its exceptionality, relied heavily on jargon, and assumed their reader was already familiar with EVE, its player community, and its surrounding norms and conventions. Non-players who were familiar with the game described their perceptions of EVE being an unwelcoming community meant they had opted out of playing without ever downloading the trial. Former players fell into three groupings: ex-players who had permanently quit EVE, a group who want to play but felt forced to take a temporary break due to external constraints (e.g. exams at school or financial limitations), and a third group would consider returning if changes to their personal circumstances and/or the game happened in future. Ultimately this research complicates what it means to play or not play MMOG, opening up avenues for future research about how access and barriers to digital game play inevitably shift over time

Introducing "Surveylady": A Case for the Use of Avatars as Part of Gaming Research

The popularity explosion of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMOs) such as World of Warcraft provides researchers with a venue to reach a wider research subject base than ever before. But what is the best way to collect data about these virtual worlds? This paper illustrates the rich potential of using an avatar to interact with MMO participants while players are immersed in the game’s virtual environment. Rather than observing from the periphery, this paper makes the case for the researcher to ‘dive right in’ and interview gamers within their (virtual) environment. This paper will argue that this methodology acts as a means for collecting rich, nuanced data about the gaming community

The Western Canada Communciation Graduate Students Conference: Notes from the Organizers

The Western Canada Communication Graduate Students Conference (more commonly known as “The Nelson Conferenceâ€) is co-organized and co-hosted by the University of Calgary and Simon Fraser University. The conference is held annually in the spring in Nelson, BC, which is the geographic midpoint between Calgary, Alberta and Burnaby, British Columbia. Nine students from the University of Calgary and ten students from Simon Fraser University presented at the conference with topics ranging from Heath Technologies, Postmodern War, Gaming Studies to work on Transnationalism, Trauma/Memory Studies and Cultural Theory. The breadth of topics and areas of inquiry that were represented at the conference were indicative of the scope of work being done in the field of Communication Studies. A sign that like most interdisciplinary programs, the discipline is home to a variety of innovative and interesting areas of research. This year’s conference marked the 19th consecutive meeting between the University of Calgary and Simon Fraser University. A conference organized for graduate students by graduate students, it offers a unique opportunity for students in Western Canada to collaborate across institutional boundaries

EVE is real: how conceptions of the 'real' affect and reflect an online game community

Used in a wide variety of contexts, a common colloquialism among EVE Online players is the phrase ‘EVE is real’. In this paper, we examine the various ways in which EVE is considered ‘real’ by its players, identifying a nuanced and powerful concept that goes significantly beyond real/virtual distinctions that have already been critiqued in game studies literature. We argue that, as a form of paratext, colloquialisms like this play an enormous role in shaping EVE Online’s informal rules (in particular towards treachery), constructing the identity of EVE Online players, communicating the seriousness of EVE Online play while in other cases, emphasizing the gameness of the MMOG

Videogame Walkthroughs in Educational Settings: Challenges, Successes, and Suggestions for Future Use

In this paper we describe the use of videogame walkthroughs implemented in three different educational contexts: 1) an informal learning environment where 11-12 year-olds used text and video walkthroughs to supplement their Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker play during an optional, lunch-time video game club in their school library; 2) a formal learning environment where grade six (11-12 year-old) students used a written walkthrough for Lost Winds 2: Winter of the Melodias played as part of their Language Arts classroom; and 3) the use of a written walkthroughs by Grade 7 and 8 teachers as part of their preparations to teach a game-based learning unit in their Geography classrooms. Taken together, we argue that while walkthroughs can be useful pedagogical tools when using videogames in classroom settings, the social and cultural contexts in which they are introduced must be carefully considered in order for their effectiveness to be fully realized

The Hemodynamics of Aneurysms Treated with Flow-Diverting Stents Considering both Stent and Aneurysm/Artery Geometries

Flow diverting stents are deployed to reduce the blood flow into the aneurysm, which would thereby induce thrombosis in the aneurysm sac; the stents prevent its rupture. The present study aimed to examine and quantify the impacts of different flow stents on idealized configurations of the cerebral artery. In our study, we considered a spherical sidewall aneurysm located on curved and tortuous idealized artery vessels and three stents with different porosities (70, 80 and 90%) for deployment. Using computational fluid dynamics, the local hemodynamics in the presence and absence of the stents were simulated, respectively, under the assumption that the blood flow was unsteady and non-Newtonian. The hemodynamic parameters, such as the intra-aneurysmal flow, velocity field and wall shear stress and its related indices, were examined and compared among the 12 cases simulated. The results illustrated that with the stent deployment, the intra-aneurysmal flow and the wall shear stress and its related indices were considerably modified depending on both stent and aneurysm/artery geometries, and that the intra-aneurysmal relative residence time increased rapidly with decreasing stent porosity in all the vessel configurations. These results also inform the rationale for selecting stents for treating aneurysms of different configurations