Optometry and Vision Sciences - Theses
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ItemThe influence of playing video games as an attention rehabilitation technique in patients with traumatic brain injury( 2016)Introduction: Video game playing has been suggested to modify various aspects of visual attention in healthy adults. Moreover, it has been tried as a training regimen to improve less than normal cognitive and perceptual abilities in groups such as the elderly and individuals with amblyopia and dyslexia. However, so far there is little evidence regarding possible game related modifications on overt allocation of visual attention (i.e. saccadic eye movements). Therefore, our first aim was to investigate whether or not observed benefits of gaming on covert allocation of attention can be related to any modifications in eye movement behaviour. Then, the influence of video game training as a possible attention rehabilitation technique in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) was examined. Methods: Three experiments were conducted to address these aims. In experiment one, saccadic eye movement characteristics of 33 gamers and 18 non-gamers were compared using four simple saccade paradigms along with two attentional measures. In experiment two, 40 healthy non-gamers were allocated to play either an action video game (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) or a control card game for 10 hours to investigate the causal influence of gaming on saccadic eye movements in five visual search paradigms. In experiment three, four patients with history of traumatic brain injury were trained on the game Call of Duty and their eye movement characteristics and attentional abilities were assessed using a single case experimental design. Results: Except for a shorter antisaccade latency in video gamers, there were not any significant differences between gamers and non-gamers in their eye movement characteristics as tested with simple paradigms. However, gamers tended to be more impulsive, as measured with a continuous performance test. In the second experiment, non-gamers who were trained on an action game did not show any significant modification of their eye movement behaviour while performing visual search tasks. However the vertical distribution of their fixations became narrower in the game-related search task, suggesting that they only learned the likely distribution of targets important in the game. A few significant improvements were observed in each patient with TBI as a result of the action game training, including shorter memory-guided saccade latency and faster search time in patient 1, shorter antisaccade latency and higher rate of self-paced saccade generation in patient 2, more accurate prosaccade gain, higher rate of self-paced saccade generation and faster search time in patient 3 and faster search time and shorter fixation duration in patient 4. Discussion: The findings generally suggest no eye movement modifications as a result of video gaming in neurologically intact people obtained both in cross-sectional and game training experiments. This finding might be related to already optimal eye movement functioning, as we normally move our eyes 2-3 times a second, therefore experiences such as video games cannot further enhance this function. A few improvements were observed after action game training in each patient with TBI in this exploratory study. The differences seen in the patients may reflect differences in underlying pathology. However to propose this technique for attention rehabilitation, more evidence, perhaps using custom made video games adaptable to patients’ needs, is required.