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This paper presents a game-design workshop built around a digital art installation featuring video games displayed over a real-world skyscraper to stimulate students' interest in computer science and a study testing its short-term effects on improving middle school students' computational thinking (CT) skills and attitudes towards computing. Following a STEAM approach, the workshop aimed to engage participants in age-appropriate activities that focus on CT skills through the lens of creating their own game. A web-based game design interface that allows students to code and play games as simulated on a skyscraper was developed to support the workshop's core activities. The web environment also featured step-by-step tutorials and fully functional games to promote the accessibility of the learning materials for a diverse body of students and educators around the globe. The results of the study indicated that the workshop helped students improve their CT skills and differentially influence their attitudes towards computing. In particular, the workshop experience led students from underserved community districts to lower their attitude ratings, whereas the reverse pattern was observed for students from more affluent districts. The workshop reportedly informed students' perception of computing as a profession and their appreciation of the analytical effort required for developing functional games. Qualitative analysis of artifact-based interviews indicated that students could begin to make abstractions and devise algorithms by associating variables through conditional statements while solving problems related to game development. Interview analysis also revealed that students took pride in the effort that they made during the workshop.

Increased preference for immediate over delayed and for risky over certain rewards has been associated with unhealthy behavioral choices. Motivated by evidence that enhanced cognitive control can shift choice behavior away from immediate and risky rewards, we tested whether training executive cognitive function could influence choice behavior and brain responses. In this randomized controlled trial, 128 young adults (71 male, 57 female) participated in 10 weeks of training with either a commercial web-based cognitive training program or web-based video games that do not specifically target executive function or adapt the level of difficulty throughout training. Pre- and post-training, participants completed cognitive assessments and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during performance of validated decision-making tasks: delay discounting (choices between smaller rewards now vs. larger rewards in the future) and risk sensitivity (choices between larger riskier rewards vs. smaller certain rewards). Contrary to our hypothesis, we found no evidence that cognitive training influences neural activity during decision-making, nor did we find effects of cognitive training on measures of delay discounting or risk sensitivity. Participants in the commercial training condition improved with practice on the specific tasks they performed during training, but participants in both conditions showed similar improvement on standardized cognitive measures over time. Moreover, the degree of improvement was comparable to that observed in individuals who were reassessed without any training whatsoever. Commercial adaptive cognitive training appears to have no benefits in healthy young adults above those of standard video games for measures of brain activity, choice behavior, or cognitive performance. Registry: NCT01252966, www.clinicaltrials.gov SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Engagement of neural regions and circuits important in executive cognitive function can bias behavioral choices away from immediate rewards. Activity in these regions may be enhanced through adaptive cognitive training. Commercial brain training programs claim to improve a broad range of mental processes; however, evidence for transfer beyond trained tasks is mixed. We undertook the first randomized controlled trial of the effects of commercial adaptive cognitive training (Lumosity®) on neural activity and decision-making in young adults (N = 128), compared to an active control (playing online video games). We found no evidence for relative benefits of cognitive training with respect to changes in decision-making behavior or brain response, or for cognitive task performance beyond those specifically trained.

Multitasking allows people to cope with the ever changing and complex world that we live in. However, as much as cognitive scientists have learned about the details of human cognition, the question of how people acquire multitasking ability remains a mystery. In this paper, we argue that multitasking can be best understood as a product of skill acquisition. In particular, we describe production composition, a computational theory of procedural skill acquisition, which can account for the acquisition of multitasking skill. We explore this idea in this paper as part of our effort to develop a cognitive model of a simulated air-traffic controller Task.

Abstract. This study examines the short-term behavioral and neural effects of an educational mobile game called MathDash on computational fluency. A portable functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIR) device was used to monitor changes in the prefrontal cortices of middle school students due to game-based training. Our aim is to explore changes in neural activity at regions in the prefrontal cortex associated with the management of working memory and attentional resources due to arithmetic training with MathDash. Overall, our results indicated that playing MathDash for a short duration of time elicited behavioral improvements as well as functional changes in bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Networking is a vital but stressful aspect of academic life, one which digital games may be able to make more playful. Existing examples of networking games require players to interact as part of the game-play, and therefore do not bypass the stressful part of networking. In contrast, many other games successfully encourage interaction between players whilst avoiding causing stress to the players. Flashbulb is a networking game that only requires a photograph of another player to be taken in order to progress. Players can choose whether to start a conversation depending on the target and situation. Thematic analysis of interviews with Flashbulb players found that despite not including an icebreaking requirement, it encouraged networking and widened the scope of those spoken to. The act of photographing players promoted conversations without forcing players to engage in uncomfortable discussions. We make recommendations for the design of future iterations of networking games.

In order to better understand the use of cognitive architectures within the Human Research and Engineering Directorate of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, and with the intent of supporting the Land Warrior program, members of the Manned Systems Design Methods Team of the Integration Methods Branch developed an adaptive control of thought - rational (ACT-R) (Anderson & Lebiere, 1998) model of mental manipulation. The goal of the model was to reproduce errors made during mental manipulation, which were similar in type and number to those made by actual soldiers who took a paper-and-pencil test of mental manipulation as part of a cognitive assessment battery. The final model was able to replicate errors made by the soldiers in the mental manipulation test; however, further work and data collection are needed to make the model predictive of the types of errors soldiers could make if they were exposed to specific types of mental manipulation problems. Lessons learned from this initial application of ACT-R are also discussed.