TY - JOUR
T1 - Gaming enhances learning-induced plastic changes in the brain
AU - Junttila, Katja
AU - Smolander, Anna Riikka
AU - Karhila, Reima
AU - Giannakopoulou, Anastasia
AU - Uther, Maria
AU - Kurimo, Mikko
AU - Ylinen, Sari
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Academy of Finland (projects no 274058 and 274075), the Doctoral Programme in Psychology, Learning and Communication, and the University of Helsinki Research Funds.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
PY - 2022/7
Y1 - 2022/7
N2 - Digital games may benefit children's learning, yet the factors that induce gaming benefits to cognition are not well known. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of digital game-based learning in children by comparing the learning of foreign speech sounds and words in a digital game or a non-game digital application. To evaluate gaming-induced plastic changes in the brain, we used the mismatch negativity (MMN) brain response that reflects the access to long-term memory representations. We recorded auditory brain responses from 37 school-aged Finnish-speaking children before and after playing a computer-based language-learning game. The MMN amplitude increased between the pre- and post-measurement for the game condition but not for the non-game condition, suggesting that the gaming intervention enhanced learning more than the non-game intervention. The results indicate that digital games can be beneficial for children's speech-sound learning and that gaming elements per se, not just practice time, support learning.
AB - Digital games may benefit children's learning, yet the factors that induce gaming benefits to cognition are not well known. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of digital game-based learning in children by comparing the learning of foreign speech sounds and words in a digital game or a non-game digital application. To evaluate gaming-induced plastic changes in the brain, we used the mismatch negativity (MMN) brain response that reflects the access to long-term memory representations. We recorded auditory brain responses from 37 school-aged Finnish-speaking children before and after playing a computer-based language-learning game. The MMN amplitude increased between the pre- and post-measurement for the game condition but not for the non-game condition, suggesting that the gaming intervention enhanced learning more than the non-game intervention. The results indicate that digital games can be beneficial for children's speech-sound learning and that gaming elements per se, not just practice time, support learning.
KW - Automatic speech recognition
KW - Digital game-based learning
KW - Foreign-language learning
KW - Gaming
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130145713&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.bandl.2022.105124
DO - 10.1016/j.bandl.2022.105124
M3 - Article
C2 - 35487084
AN - SCOPUS:85130145713
SN - 0093-934X
VL - 230
JO - Brain and Language
JF - Brain and Language
M1 - 105124
ER -