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More motivated but equally good: no effect of gamification on visual working memory performance

Maria Mystakidou, View ORCID ProfileRonald van den Berg
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.12.903203
Maria Mystakidou
1Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
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Ronald van den Berg
2Stockholm University
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  • ORCID record for Ronald van den Berg
  • For correspondence: nronaldvdberg@gmail.com
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ABSTRACT

Gamification refers to the introduction of gaming elements such as scores and leaderboards in non-gaming contexts. While there is growing evidence that gamification has positive effects on intrinsic motivation and engagement, it is largely unknown whether these effects translate to improved cognitive performance. Here, we examine whether gamification affects performance on a visual working memory (VWM) task. In Experiment 1, we gamified a standard delayed-estimation task by introducing scores and a leveling system. On each trial, the subject’s estimation error was mapped to a score between −100 and +100 and added to their total score. Subjects started at a set size of 1 and “leveled up” to the next set size each time they had accumulated 1,500 points. Post-experiment questionnaire data confirmed that subjects who performed the gamified version of the task were more motivated than control subjects. However, we found no difference in VWM performance between these two groups, nor between below-median and above-median motivated subjects. In Experiment 2, we tested for effects of trial-by-trial manipulations of motivation on VWM performance, by varying the scoring function across trials. Three scoring functions were used, with maxima of 7, 21, and 101 points. At the beginning of each trial, the subject was informed whether the potential reward was “low”, “medium”, or “high”. Post-questionnaire data showed that subjects were more motivated on high-reward trials. However, we found no evidence for a difference in performance between the three reward levels. Our results suggest that gamification increases people’s motivation to carry out visual working memory tasks, but it does not necessarily increase their performance.

Footnotes

  • https://osf.io/gb2kd/

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted January 14, 2020.
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More motivated but equally good: no effect of gamification on visual working memory performance
Maria Mystakidou, Ronald van den Berg
bioRxiv 2020.01.12.903203; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.12.903203
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More motivated but equally good: no effect of gamification on visual working memory performance
Maria Mystakidou, Ronald van den Berg
bioRxiv 2020.01.12.903203; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.12.903203

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