Playing highly competitive video games may lead to aggressive behavior

While most research into video games and aggressive behavior has focused on violent games, competitiveness may be the main video game characteristic that influences aggression, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

In a series of experiments in which video games were matched on competitiveness, difficulty, and pace of action, researchers found video game violence alone did not elevate aggressive behavior. However, more competitive games produced greater levels of aggressive behavior than less competitive games, no matter how much violence was in the games, according to research published online in Psychology of Violence. The study was conducted by lead author Paul J.C. Adachi, M.A., a PhD candidate at Brock University in Canada.

In one experiment, Adachi had 42 college students (25 men, 17 women) play one of two video games, "Conan" or "Fuel," for 12 minutes. "Conan" is a violent game in which the main character battles for survival using swords and axes. "Fuel" is a nonviolent racing game. In a pilot study, both games were rated evenly in terms of competitiveness, difficulty and pace of action, but differently in terms of violence. After participants finished playing the game, they were told they were going to take part in a separate food tasting study. Participants had to make up a cup of hot sauce for a "taster" who they were told did not particularly like hot or spicy food. The participants could choose from one of four different hot sauces (from least hot to most hot) for the taster to drink. The authors found that there was no significant difference in the intensity and amount of the hot sauces prepared by the participants who played "Conan" and those who played "Fuel." The authors concluded that, in this study, video game violence alone was not sufficient to elevate aggressive behavior.

In a second experiment, Adachi had 60 college students (32 men, 28 women) play one of the following four video games: "Mortal Kombat versus DC Universe," a violent fighting game rated as highly competitive and very violent; "Left 4 Dead 2," a violent, moderately competitive first-person shooter game in which the main character battles zombies using guns; "Marble Blast Ultra," a nonviolent, noncompetitive game where players control a marble through a series of labyrinth-like mazes as quickly as possible; and "Fuel," the highly competitive, nonviolent racing game from the first study. Afterward, the students completed the same hot sauce tasting test from the first study. Electrocardiograms measured the participants' heart rates before and during video game play.

On average, students who played the highly competitive games, "Fuel" and "Mortal Kombat versus DC Universe," prepared significantly more of a hotter sauce than participants who played "Marble Blast Ultra" and "Left 4 Dead 2," the least competitive games. They also had significantly higher heart rates.

"These findings suggest that the level of competitiveness in video games is an important factor in the relation between video games and aggressive behavior, with highly competitive games leading to greater elevations in aggression than less competitive games," wrote Adachi.

More information: "The Effect of Video Game Competition and Violence on Aggressive Behavior: Which Characteristic Has the Greatest Influence?" Paul J.C. Adachi, M.A., and Teena Willoughby, PhD, Brock University, Canada; Psychology of Violence, Online First, August 17, 2011.

Provided by American Psychological Association

"Playing highly competitive video games may lead to aggressive behavior." August 29th, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-highly-competitive-video-games-aggressive.html

Comment:
If you want to see real violence, try forcing your teenage son to play 'Barbie Horse Adventures' when his mates are due to drop around...

UCLA memory fitness program improves memory abilities of oldest adults

Who hasn't forgotten someone's name, misplaced their glasses or walked into a room and not remembered why they entered? Normal age-related memory decline affects more than half of all seniors, and those over 80 are the most vulnerable.

A new UCLA study has found that a memory fitness program offered to older adults in their senior living communities helped improve their ability to recognize and recall words, benefitting their verbal learning and retention.

Published in the September issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, the study also found that as a result of the program, seniors' self-perceived memory improved, an important factor in maintaining a positive outlook on life while aging. The average age of participants in the study was 81.

"It was exciting to see how much older adults participate in a memory fitness program and improve," said study author Dr. Karen Miller, an associate clinical professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. "The study demonstrates that it's never too late to learn new skills to enhance one's life."

As people get older, it takes longer to learn new information and to retrieve it, including names, dates, the location of household objects, meetings, and appointments, according to the study's senior author, Dr. Gary Small, UCLA's Parlow-Solomon Professor on Aging and director of the UCLA Longevity Center.

The six-week, 12-session program differed from other cognitive training courses in that it offered not only memory-training techniques but also education about lifestyle factors that may impact memory ability and overall brain health. Participants learned stress-reduction exercises and were instructed about the importance of daily physical exercise and maintaining a healthy diet rich in antioxidants.

"Lifestyle and environmental factors may play a role in cognitive decline, so our program included education about healthy living in addition to memory-training techniques," said Small, who is also a professor at the Semel Institute.

Although the UCLA team has offered similar programs in other settings, such as at senior centers and on the UCLA campus, this is one of the first times that such a comprehensive memory program has been designed for and offered in a retirement living community. This made participation easier, since seniors in most cases simply walked down a hallway rather than having to drive to a class off-site.

The study involved 115 seniors at two full-service retirement communities in Maryland that are part of Erickson Living, a leading continuing-care community developer and manager. Participants lived in the "independent" level of care in these communities and had memory complaints, but they had not been diagnosed with dementia and were not taking any medications for memory loss.

Half the participants were enrolled in the memory fitness program and received memory testing before beginning the program and after completion to assess improvement. The other half were placed on a waiting list for the program and acted as study controls.

Miller and Small developed a scripted curriculum for trainers who led the classes, and they provided a companion workbook for participants. Trainers in the study were employees of the Erickson Living retirement communities and had backgrounds in academia and health-related fields.

The one-hour education sessions focused on memory enhancement. They included explanations of how memory works; offered quick strategies for remembering names, faces and numbers; and provided basic memory tools such as linking ideas and creating visual images. Trainers also discussed the role of a healthy lifestyle in protecting and maintaining memory.

Among the older adults attending the classes, the researchers found marked improvement in verbal memory, as well as improvements in how they perceived their memory, compared with the controls.

"We found that the memory fitness program was readily accepted by residents in our senior living communities and that it directly benefited many of them," said John Parrish, Ph.D., executive director of the Erickson Foundation. "In fact, we are now offering the program in nearly all of our 16 communities across the nation."

"The study suggests that the memory fitness program may be a cost-effective means of addressing some of the memory-related concerns of healthy older adults," Parrish added.

Provided by University of California - Los Angeles

"UCLA memory fitness program improves memory abilities of oldest adults." August 29th, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-ucla-memory-abilities-oldest-adults.html

Study examines how couples' collaborative dialogue may assist in memory

(Medical Xpress) -- Effective memory is a key ability for independent living in later life, and a new Iowa State University study is among the first to report that social partners can help extend memory. The study also found that the collaboration that helps middle-aged couples with memory tasks doesn't seem to be as effective for couples older than 70.

Jennifer Margrett, an assistant professor in human development and family studies, led the study, titled "Examining Collaborative Dialogue Among Couples: A Window Into Prospective Memory Processes." Psychological researchers Celinda Reese-Melancon from Oklahoma State University and Peter Rendell from Australian Catholic University collaborated with Margrett on the study, which was posted online by the Journal of Psychology and will be published in a special issue on prospective memory. They also presented two posters on their results earlier this month at the American Psychological Association conference in Boston, Mass.

The researchers found that spouses do rely on each other as external memory aids. However, the extent to which this strategy is effective depends on how reliable the partner's memory is, and that reliability changes with age for most people.

"In my lab we found that overall, collaboration is usually very helpful on a variety of cognitive tasks, but it's sort of a mixed bag in this recent study, which focuses on memory tasks," Margrett said. "When you think about memory, if I ask you to remember something, you'll get on a roll, think of one thing, and then another thing should come. But if you have a partner who's interrupting you, interjecting, and perhaps leading you down a 'garden path,' that can definitely interfere in memory. So you may have done better on the memory path working alone than you did with a partner.

"For our middle-aged couples in this pilot study, they definitely seemed to fill in the [memory] gaps more effectively than our older couples did," she continued. "So we found that two heads weren't necessarily better than one among the older couples."

Studying central Iowa married couples

The research was conducted on 14 married couples from central Iowa -- three being younger (average age of 35), five being middle-aged (average age of 52) and the other six being older couples (average age of 73).

All participants were asked to complete a variety of prospective memory tasks by playing the board game "Virtual Week," which encourages verbal interaction among players about completing real life tasks. For each virtual "day" in the game, participants were asked to perform 10 different prospective memory tasks -- four that regularly occur (i.e.: taking medication with breakfast), four that were different each day (i.e.: purchasing gasoline for the car), and two being time-check tasks that were not based on the activities of the board game (i.e.: check lung capacity at two specified times).

The researchers video-recorded the spouses playing the game in order to determine whether partners tried to assist each other in completing the task, and the impact that collaboration had on their partner's memory. They found that partners attempted to collaborate on prospective memory tasks, reporting evidence of tutoring, monitoring, encoding and sociability among the couples -- four of the most frequent types of collaborative behaviors.

"We did look at critical statements and demand statements among the couples, and in this sample, they were very low," Margrett said. "If people expressed any sort of socio-emotional type of statements, it was more encouraging of a partner. But from our better to worst comparison of the dyads, the couples who performed at a higher level were more sociable and encouraging."

Extending the memory dialogue implications

While this study specifically examined married couples, Margrett says the research may be extended to others who collaborate in prospective memory tasks each day.

"This study had to do with couples, but you interact with co-workers, adult children and others throughout middle and late life. If someone is living in a long-term care facility, they're interacting with caregivers," she said. "And so the idea is to extrapolate our findings to other dyads to see how can we support people within the context of both normal cognitive aging, as well as non-normative cognitive aging -- which includes some memory impairment, and potentially dementia."

Provided by Iowa State University

"Study examines how couples' collaborative dialogue may assist in memory." August 29th, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-couples-collaborative-dialogue-memory.html