V-058 | Evaluation of Different Cognitive Training Strategies for the Development of Executive Functions in Children

Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: Gabriel Osvaldo Paz | Email: pazg@udesa.edu.ar

Gabriel O. Paz^1°3°, Melina Vladisauskas^4°,Martina Boscolo^1°3°, Luis Bustamante^2°, Daniela Macario-Cabral^1°2°, Diego Slezak^2°3°, Andrea P. Goldin^1°3°

^1° Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. Escuela de Negocios. Centro de Inteligencia Artificial y Neurociencia (CIAN). Laboratorio de Neurociencia. CONICET
^2° Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Departamento de Computación, Laboratorio de Inteligencia Artificial Aplicada (LIAA)
^3° Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires 1428, Argentina
^4° Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, CEA, INSERM, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin Center, 91191 Gif/Yvette, France

For the past 15 years, we have been applying the cognitive assessment and training web platform “Mate Marote” with children aged 4 to 8 years. In pilot studies, we observed that children are capable of playing levels that quickly and progressively increase difficulty. Here, we aim to compare two cognitive training models: one with a fixed progression style, similar to what we have used so far, in which the difficulty level increases, or decreases, after three correct, or incorrect, trials, respectively. The other one, with a dynamic progression that quickly adapts to the player’s initial skill level and, afterwards, slows its difficulty as each child finds their balance point. Our main hypotheses are that children’s executive functions performance: (1) will be higher in the post-test compared to the pre-test, and (2) although that gain may vary for each measured construct, it will be greater for the group with the dynamic adaptive training model. We believe our results will foster motivation along training sessions that dynamically adapt tasks difficulty based on individual cognitive abilities, thus improving results.