Tangible electronic devices have become an inseparable part of our lives. We see and use them in our work place, in the public space and at home as personal entertainment devices. In the last couple of years several new devices have been introduced to the home entertainment industry, specifically game consoles such as the Nintendo Wii®, the Microsoft X-box® and the Guitar Hero®, which contributed to transformation in the way we engage technology. These new modes of interaction are accomplished through the use of high resolution graphics, interaction interfaces and input devices that connect the user’s motions to real-time outcomes in the game’s environment. In other words, the appeal of these game consoles lies in the direct connection between the user and the game itself, and the feeling that each physical motion has a reciprocal action in the virtual world. Following the success of the aforementioned products, the children’s educational game industry was quick to follow the emerging trend and began creating game consoles that combine educational games with physical gestures, based on the connection between cognitive and motor skills for optimization of the learning processes.
In this paper I will show the advantages of employing these types of games in child development and how the physical interface can help to extend children’s cognitive knowledge. For this purpose I will review the literature that has been written about interfaces, educational software, games, cognitive development and interaction of children with educational software. Following the literature review I will compare two relatively new commercial game consoles: Fisher Price’s Smart Cycle® and Vtech’s V-motion®.
The knowledge base used for writing this paper is taken from online movies of children using the consoles, manufactures’ information and other available online product information. Due to the large variety of compatible video games for each console, this paper will not focus on the video games themselves nor their interface but rather on the physical devices and the extent of their ability to interact with the user in light of the cognitive benefits they promise.
Literature review
In order to start the discussion about tangible interfaces in educational games I would like to first define what is a game. Roger Caillois defines “Game” as something that contains competition, chance, vertigo and mimicry (make believe). In other words, a game contains both elements from the virtual and make-belief world and from the real world (e.g. competition). Players of games perform actions that reference real-world activities but at the same time they are actively aware that they are “in the game” and that their actions do not have immediate effect in the real world. Yet, in educational games the goal is to perform actions that will have influence on the user’s real world knowledge, which means that some parts of the mimicry process need to have influence on the ability to change concepts and ideas in the child’s mind.
The first person to create a rational educational game was Fredric Froebel, who understood the importance of operations like analysis and synthesis in early childhood, to the creation of mental modals. Froebel created “Gifts” that encouraged children to actively interact with basic shapes, colors and 3D objects in order to create complex forms and structures in the context of a game. Froebel’s ideas about simple and basic concepts that are taught in early ages and become the foundation of other complex mental models are still relevant in cognitive development theories.
In my comparative study I will refer to the following three categories:
1. Cognitive age compatible- the video game consoles that I will study are designed for ages 3-7, this age group is referred to as “The Preoperational Period” according to Piaget’s cognitive development theory. Children in these ages have specific cognitive abilities, for example, they can understand the world in more than just a sensory-motor way but they cannot perform mental operations on their perception and cannot change their perception unless the world has changed. Also their ability to reason is very limited and involves only one-way reasoning skills i.e., if A causes B, then B causes A. However, at age five children are already able to play strategy and memory games and understand clear and simple rules. Only at that age do children start to use objects not only for their real world purpose but also as a representation of other objects. Furthermore, although adults will learn better from a multimedia experience of images and text, children’s comprehension in our examined age group, will be better when the content is represented through images and animation alone, despite having started to develop reading abilities. These properties ultimately define the way in which this age group will interact with video games. For example, a four year old child will most probably not be able to play a game which has a complicated narrative and demands the use of a controller that differs considerably from the object it represents.
2. Active learning- researches showed that students who learned new information from an active learning media (e.g. video game) demonstrated a better ability to understand and remember complex ideas and concepts than students who read verbal instructions. Active learning improves the ability to recall and understand knowledge because the learner is encouraged to directly manipulate the object of interest, for example, pushing buttons, making decisions, telling stories and more, hence this kind of operation creates a stronger connection in one’s mind between the action and the concepts learned. Moreover, active learning sometimes involves several representation formats of input and output such as text, graphics, sound and more. Multimedia information that is sensitive to cognitive load improves the ability to take information from working memory and put it in long term memory, because the information is presented or integrated in more than one modality.
Buckleitner’s study shows that the more control a child is given by the game’s interface, the more active the child will be in the game itself (represented by the amount of solved problems, answered questions etc.). In other words, environments that allow children to take control in the game will lead to active behavior which in turn enhances the active learning process and improves the learning process of educational content.
3. Interface – there are many guidelines for multimedia and educational interface design for children in the literature. This topic is broader than the scope of this paper, yet I will try to address some guidelines that more specifically refer to physical interface:
Physical gestures- children showed better ability to pull out details from their memory when they were asked to make gestures that where connected to those details. Since children in early ages have limited verbal abilities they tend to rely more on modality-specific representation of concepts and ideas, using their body state. By synchronizing bodily gestures with the concepts or knowledge that is being taught, children remember and understand the concept much better. For example, in-order to teach children the difference between big and small, asking them to make big gestures and small gestures with their hands can create representations of big and small concepts that will accumulate by rehearsing which create mental models of this knowledge. There should obviously be a link between a user’s actions and the effect of these actions in the game environment, so that the created mental models will in fact be valid or useful. Also the physical interaction should be based on the natural way children use their body. The use of the tangible device should be natural and obvious to children and support parallel use of motor and cognitive processes. When the motions are not natural but compete with one another or with the cognitive process, they have no meaning to the child and can cause high load on working memory.
Buckleitner showed that when interacting with conventional input devices, children had difficulty using a mouse and tended to make repetitive clicks, some intentional and some unintentional, that represented their emotions (excitement or frustration) . Another aspect of physical interfaces for children is their need to fit a child’s body size and to be physically easy to use. The device also needs to have a high degree of physical durability for extended and unexpected use which is usually not the direct intention of the child but rather a byproduct of his actions.
Working memory - according to researchers in cognitive development, children have less strategies to process information and to hold information in working memory, therefore it is very important to prevent working memory overload. This goal can be accomplished in many ways. One example for tangible interfaces can be synchronizing the visual presentation with the physical motions that are been performed. For example, if the user makes a pulling gesture which translates to the opposite action of pushing on the screen, then that can cause working memory overload. Another way is to reduce redundant information, especially in parts where high cognitive workload is needed (e.g. when an important concept is been taught). An example of this situation can be a physical interface with lots of colors and buttons in which only a few actually work or create new information.
Feedback- the interface should provide both physical and virtual feedback. This information should relate to the knowledge that is being learned as well as the errors and actions that the user has made. The information can be conveyed in the form of audio, tactile, narration, visual, motion, or through the use of several modes at once (without creating cognitive load). Feedback is a very important phase in any learning process since it helps the child understand the process of problem solving. Once a problem is solved the solution of similar problems leads to an increase of cognitive constructs in long-term memory and thus to the construction of knowledge.
The question I would like to address in this paper is how do educational motor video game devices contribute to the building of mental models of simple concepts?
The cognitive process involved in educational video games. The diagram shows the path from the video game itself through the device which reinforces the concepts learned during the game via working memory and the creation of mental models.
Discussion
Both the Smart cycle® and the v-motion® consider themselves to be interactive motion-based educational game consoles. However, they differ in the way they address the connection between the virtual concept and physical motion. Although compatible in terms of their target age group and providing an active learning environment, I think that the lack of synchronization between physical gestures and concepts being taught reduces the Smart cycle® to the level of a standard video arcade game and not an educational motion-based console . Children interacting with it perform two different sets of operations: the first operation is physical, i.e. paddling and moving the handlebars and the second is the mental operation of problem-solving presented by the virtual interface. Since these operations do not correlate with one another there is not a lot of benefit to gain from the physical motions in terms of the learning process and knowledge construction. Furthermore, the physical motions do not give the console any added value when it comes to creating mental models compared to a regular video game.
On the other hand, the v-motion® demands from the child to perform a large range of motion that either mimic motions shown on screen (e.g. kung-fu motions), mimic motions from real life (e.g. hit a tennis ball with an imaginary racket) or perform motions that have immediate outcome in the game environment (e.g. tilt both hand to the right in order to shift characters on screen to the right). These kinds of operations demand more cognitive work load at first but also help the child to create mental models of the performed concepts, for example, right and left, fast and slow. The learning process is close to the way the acquired knowledge will be used, thus it will be recalled and remembered more easily in the future.
Conclusions
Motion-based educational games have become popular in the last few years as a new paradigm in video game culture supported largely by technological advancement. But not all motion-based games have the same benefits regarding the learning process of mental models and their creation. A game console that strives to maximize the benefits of motion and education needs to synchronize the concepts been taught with the body gestures and to make the learning process as close as possible to the way the knowledge will be used in real life. I believe that game consoles like v-motion® can be used to teach and reinforce abilities that concern the cognitive development in young children (ages 3-7). For example, according to Piaget’s cognitive development theory children in these ages start to understand conceptual ideas and are able to go beyond sensory-motory skills and use their imagination. However, they are still not cognitively developed enough to perform mental operations, think about virtual objects and understand complex reasoning. Game consoles can help them learn concepts like the once Froebel taught in his first kindergarten – color mixing, relations between sizes and shapes and locations (here and there) – by active learning that incorporates body gestures and multimedia. This kind of learning process can give knowledge a better chance of becoming a mental model in the child’s mind. Furthermore, towards the end of the Preoperational period (ages 7-8), children start to have the ability to perform mental operations on virtual objects and to solve strategy and memory game. In this stage educational motion-based games can be used to help children perform mental operations and solve scientific and strategy problems by using motion controllers that can give immediate feedback in the form of 3D graphic animations.
Since behavioral activity alone does not guarantee cognitive active learning, some issues such as the incorporation of multimedia environments (i.e. video games) with the physical motion-based devices and the cognitive engagement of the user when playing the game, can be further examined to better understand whether a complete active learning process is performed via game consoles like the ones compared in this paper.
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