Developing and Evaluating a Musical Attention Control Training Game Application

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)

Abstract

Musical attention control training (MACT) is a Neuro-logic Music Therapy (NMT) technique to strengthen attention skills for people who may have attention deficits, for instance related to ADHD or Parkinson Disease (PD), activating different parts of the brain and stimulating neural connectivity. While multiple interventions per week would enhance the effect of MACT, attending several sessions a week with a therapist can be challenging. Applied game interventions implementing MACT, which can be played at home, could offer complementary training to the limited number of therapy sessions. While applied games have been shown to facilitate successful interventions for cognitive impairments, to date no game exists based on MACT. We propose a novel approach to research the plausibility of applied games to support NMT, conclude game requirements for the specific needs of People with PD (PwPD), and introduce a game that emulates a MACT session. We carried out a pilot experiment to gauge how users interact with the game and its efficacy in attention control training with non-PD participants, letting them play 10 game intervention sessions within two weeks. Although no significant short-term attention effects were observed in this timeframe, user evaluations and metrics of game performance suggest that gamified MACT could be a promising supplement to conventional MACT for improving attention skills to optimize quality of life of PwPD.

Authors 5

1. Anja Volk

   University of Southern California · Utrecht University

   Affiliation as printed

   Utrecht University

   University of Southern California

2. Ermis Chalkiadakis

   Utrecht University

   Affiliation as printed

   Utrecht University

3. Sander C. J. Bakkes

   Utrecht University

   Affiliation as printed

   Utrecht University

4. Laurien Hakvoort

   ArtEZ University of the Arts

   Affiliation as printed

   ArtEZ Institute of the Arts

5. Rebecca S. Schaefer Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Universiteit Leiden

   Leiden University