TRAIN-39

Summary: The overall goal of this project was to better understand how the brain successfully acquires skills relevant to complex tasks. The Space Fortress videogame was used as a platform for investigating skill learning. The game was originally developed by cognitive psychologists at the University of Illinois, as a tool to study learning and training strategies. Notably, it is one of the few cognitive training tools that has shown transfer of training to real-world performance. Flight students that trained on Space Fortress performed better on a battery of real-world flight tests, and were more likely to be selected to pursue pilot training compared to a no-training control group. Studies have also found that learning Space Fortress with a strategy that involves flexibly shifting attention to different aspects of the game results in improved learning. Thus, the Space Fortress game serves as a great tool for studying how the brain acquires new, complex skills, and how the trained ability can extend to new contexts.

This sample includes 39 young adults (11M/28F; ages 16-28). All subjects trained on Space Fortress for 20 hours, but half of the subjects were given an explicit "variable priority" strategy. See references for more details.

Scanner Type: Siemens Allegra, 3T

The following data are released for every participant:

• MPRAGE anatomical scan, defaced to protect patient confidentiality
• 13 fMRI runs: A total of 13 functional runs were acquired, consisting of seven 46-second blocks of passively watching (PW) a sample Space Fortress game played by an expert, interleaved with six blocks of active task. The six active task blocks included two runs of an oddball task (OB), which required counting the number of high-pitch tones among low-pitch distracter tones, two runs of playing Space Fortress (SF), and two runs of playing Space Fortress while also performing the oddball task (SF + OB).
1. Passive Watching
2. Odd-Ball
3. Passive Watching
4. Space Fortress
5. Passive Watching
6. Space Fortress + Odd Ball
7. Passive Watching
8. Space Fortress + Odd Ball
9. Passive Watching
10. Space Fortress
11. Passive Watching
12. Odd-Ball
13. Passive Watching
• Demographic Information
• Training Data
1. fMRI Subscore Summaries
2. Training Subscore Summaries
3. Training Simple Summary

Instructions for Participants

• Full Emphasis Condition
• Variable Priority Condition
• Game Initiation Session
• Space Fortress
• MRI Participant

Instructional Video for Video Game

Full Instructions Video (Download)
Short Summary Video (Download)

Investigators
Arthur Kramer, Walter Boot, Kirk Erickson

Acknowledgements
The research conducted at UIUC on this project was conducted through the collaboration of the following researchers: Walter Boot, Monica Fabiani, Wai-Tat Fu, Gabriele Gratton, Daniel Simons, Michelle Wang, Kirk Erickson, Chadramallika Basak, Dirk Bernhardt-Walther, Hyunkyu Lee, Kathy Low, Ed Maclin, Kyle Mathewson, Mark Neider, Ruchika Prakash, Loan Vo, and Michelle Voss.

All imaging data was collected at the Biomedical Imaging Center at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at UIUC.

Funding

• Office of Naval Research (ONR) Grant number: N00014-07-1-0903

Publications

• fMRI
• Voss, M.W., Prakash, R.S., Erickson, K.I., Boot, W.R., Basak, C., Neider, M.B., Simons, D.J., Fabiani, M., Gratton, G., & Kramer, A.F. (in press). Effects of training strategies implemented in a complex videogame on functional connectivity of attentional networks. NeuroImage
• Vo, L.T.K., Walther, D.B., Kramer, A.F., Erickson, K.I., Boot, W.R., Voss, M.W., Prakash, R.S., Fabiani, M., Gratton, G., Simons, D.J., & Wang, Y.M. (in press). Predicting individuals' learning success from patterns of pre-learning MRI Activity. PLoS ONE, 6(1): e16093.
• MRI
• Erickson, K.I., Boot, W.R., Basak, C., Neider, M.B., Prakash, R.S., Voss, M.W., Graybiel, A.M., Simons, D.J., Fabiani, M., Gratton, G., & Kramer, A.F. (2010). Is bigger better? Striatum volume predicts the level of video game skill acquisition. Cerebral Cortex, 20, 2522-2530.
• Behavioral Training
• Boot, W.R., Basak, C., Erickson, K.I., Neider, M., Simons, D.J., Fabiani, M., Gratton, G., Voss, M.W., Prakash, R.S., Lee, H., Low, K.A., & Kramer, A.F. (2010). Transfer of skill engendered by complex task training under conditions of variable priority. Acta Psychologica, 135, 349-357.

 

USAGE AGREEMENT
Creative Commons License: Attribution - Non-Commercial

Data Release Table

TRAIN-39.001.001.LiteNIFTI.tar.gz

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