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. 2016 Sep 20;6(9):e893.
doi: 10.1038/tp.2016.178.

Characterizing cognitive control abilities in children with 16p11.2 deletion using adaptive 'video game' technology: a pilot study

J A Anguera  1   2 , A N Brandes-Aitken  1 , C E Rolle  1 , S N Skinner  1 , S S Desai  1 , J D Bower  3 , W E Martucci  3 , W K Chung  4 , E H Sherr  1   5 , E J Marco  1   2   5
Affiliations

Characterizing cognitive control abilities in children with 16p11.2 deletion using adaptive 'video game' technology: a pilot study

J A Anguera et al. Transl Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Assessing cognitive abilities in children is challenging for two primary reasons: lack of testing engagement can lead to low testing sensitivity and inherent performance variability. Here we sought to explore whether an engaging, adaptive digital cognitive platform built to look and feel like a video game would reliably measure attention-based abilities in children with and without neurodevelopmental disabilities related to a known genetic condition, 16p11.2 deletion. We assessed 20 children with 16p11.2 deletion, a genetic variation implicated in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism, as well as 16 siblings without the deletion and 75 neurotypical age-matched children. Deletion carriers showed significantly slower response times and greater response variability when compared with all non-carriers; by comparison, traditional non-adaptive selective attention assessments were unable to discriminate group differences. This phenotypic characterization highlights the potential power of administering tools that integrate adaptive psychophysical mechanics into video-game-style mechanics to achieve robust, reliable measurements.

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Conflict of interest statement

JDB and WEM are employees of Akili Interactive Labs, which manufactures the Project: EVO device and supplied the device for use in this study. The remaining authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Screen shots of Project: EVO. (a) Image of participant playing Project: EVO showing the individual steering the character, while anticipating the appearance of target stimuli. (b) Image of the visual search task, (c) Image of the flanker task (incongruent trial type).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Project: EVO selective attention performance. (a) EVO single- and multi-tasking response time performance for each group (carriers, non-affected siblings and non-affected control groups). (b) EVO multi-tasking RT. (c) Visual search task performance for the conjunction 12 conditions (most difficult). (d) Flanker task performance for the incongruent trial type. Error bars represent s.e., horizontal bars on each plot represent the mean. **P<0.01. RT, response time.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Illustration of effect sizes. Effect sizes (Cohen's D) for EVO and iPad assessments are displayed, with these values calculated from repeated measures estimated marginal means for group main effects. RT, response time.
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