Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Serious Games
Date Submitted: Oct 9, 2024
Date Accepted: Dec 27, 2024
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
The Reward Feedback Mechanism in VR Serious Games for Intervening in Children with Attention Deficits: A Pre- and Post-Test Experimental Control Group Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Virtual reality serious games, due to their high level of freedom and realism, influence the rehabilitation training of inhibitory control abilities in children with ADHD. Although reward feedback has a motivating effect on improving inhibitory control, the effectiveness and differences between various forms of rewards lack empirical research.
Objective:
To investigate the effectiveness of different forms of reward feedback on the inhibitory control abilities of children with attention deficits in a virtual reality serious game environment.
Methods:
This study used a 2 (material reward: coin reward, token reward) × 2 (mental reward: verbal encouragement, badge reward) between-subjects factorial design (N=84), with a control group (N=15), conducting a pre- and post-test experiment. The intervention effects were evaluated using behavioral experiments and multiple assessment tools. The specific evaluation tools included the SNAP-IV questionnaire and three tasks programmed in Eprime 2.0: the Stop-Signal Task, the Inhibition Conflict Task, and the Simon Task. These tasks and surveys were used to comprehensively assess performance differences before and after the intervention, thereby verifying the behavioral intervention effects of material and mental rewards on the participants.
Results:
Reward feedback was more effective than no reward feedback in improving behaviors related to attention deficits in children. Material rewards showed significant effects in the Stop-Signal Task (F=13.043, p<.05), Inhibition Conflict Task (F=7.34, p<.001), and SNAP-IV test (F=69.232, p<.001); mental rewards showed significant effects in the Stop-Signal Task (F=38.537, p<.001) and SNAP-IV test (F=70.775, p<.001); the interaction between the two showed significant effects in the Stop-Signal Task (F=4.468, p<.05) and SNAP-IV test (F=23.847, p<.001).
Conclusions:
The virtual reality intervention training platform, through both material and mental reward feedback—especially their combination—can effectively improve attention deficit behaviors in children.
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