6 - Chronic Renal Disease

Abstract

The goal of this focused review is to examine the potential of using computer games as vehicles for improving cognitive skills in young adults, particularly the cognitive development of executive function skills, such as being able to shift attention efficiently from one task to another (i.e., shifting). On the disappointing side, this review finds a lack of convincing evidence that off-the-shelf games (often designed for entertainment) promote executive function skills. In addition, there is a lack of consistent evidence that long-term exposure to brain training games, such as offered in Lumosity, improves performance on non-game measures of executive function such as shifting (Bainbridge & Mayer, 2018). However, on the encouraging side, this review finds promising evidence for the benefits of playing a focused computer game that is designed to provide repeated practice on a targeted executive function skill (e.g., shifting) in a variety of contexts, at progressively increasing levels of challenge, and with clear feedback (Parong et al., 2017). The most promising direction for games aimed at fostering the cognitive development of executive function skills is to create mini-games that target a specific skill and are grounded in cognitive theories of skill learning.