The purpose of this project was to serve as a tool for determining the effectiveness of brain training apps. Despite evidence of cognitive training's effectiveness in numerous areas and demographics, the assumption of brain training’s effectiveness in improving cognitive skills has been questioned. There are few studies that have analysed the difference in training results among different age groups and how long training effects last. I used commercially available training tasks that were adopted to tap into working memory to fill this gap in the literature. Pre-training and post-training tests were used to assess the training's effectiveness.
For this project, I developed two cognitive games to aid the research. I used a collection of training tasks that were initially produced for the commercially accessible cognitive training application Cambridge Cognition to select and apply them to the games. The tasks chosen by the researcher were similar to those commonly employed in cognitive research. All testing sessions to determine the effectiveness of cognitive training with video games were performed by participants from their homes.
This was created to assess users' cognitive ability; there are 15 levels with two separate memory tests; a digit span and spatial span test.
This was created to improve users' cognitive ability; there are 30 levels, 15 digit span levels and 15 spatial span levels to enhance the participants’ cognitive skills. This game used both the digit span and spatial span modes from game 1; however, unlike in game 1, the game started from an easy level requiring users to remember just one sound or pattern to more advanced levels where users had to recognise up to 5 sounds or patterns. This was designed to ensure users developed skills to scale through the levels.
Both games can be found at https://nugwxa.itch.io/444