Ying-Kit Wong

Attention allows us to focus and process information from our environment, and executive function enables us to plan, work, and manage our daily lives. As individuals become older, both of these cognitive abilities decline. It is essential for the elderly to perform more cognitive exercises. Previous studies have shown that arithmetic calculations require attention span and that playing video games requires executive function. Therefore, we developed a serious game involving mental arithmetic calculations specifically for improving attention span and executive functions. Our objective was to analyze the effectiveness of the game and the efficacy of the game’s mechanic factors affecting attention span and executive function in the elderly. Forty elderly volunteers who are over 60 years of age were invited to join an eight-week cognitive training program through an elderly social welfare center. Four assessment tests were used in pre-test and post-test before and after the training period. D-CAT and SAT are used for screening attention span; TMT-A and TMT-B are used for screening executive function. They were instructed to play the game for at least 15 min per day, 5 days per week, for a total of 8 weeks. There were three independent variables (difficulty, pressure, and competition) with two parameters that could be selected. A paired-sample t-test showed the effective results by comparing the pre-test scores and post-test scores of the cognitive training. There were significant improvements in attention span and executive functions. The mixed repeated-measure ANOVA and MANCOVA results showed that two game mechanic factors (difficulty and pressure) had a significant effect and an interaction effect, but the other factor (competition) had a non-significant effect. In conclusion, the game showed a significant enhancement in both attention span and executive functions after training, and the difficulty factor and the pressure factor were shown to have an effect, but the competition factor was shown to have no effect.

Many people use smart speakers at home nowadays for various reasons, such as playing music, checking news and weather, setting timers/alarms, etc. However, before smart speakers were created and available on the market, people used to have home audio systems for similar applications. Nonetheless, the control systems of smart speakers have many different appearances. Affordance is the information given by an object, which is determined by its appearance and supplies clues about its appropriate operation. Therefore, smart speakers should have affordances. Since smart speakers are the main device in the sustainable lifestyle of human beings in smart homes, this study analyzed the affordances of its appearance affect people and the result is essential to the sustainability of smart home. The present study presents a review of the smart speakers in Taiwan, focusing on the four main affordances (physical, cognitive, sensory, functional) and three different age groups (60 participants) based on four appearance categories of smart speaker control, namely, mechanical button control, no-button–no-touch control, touchscreen control, and touch sensor control. By examining the comparison of three age groups, 18–24, 25–49 and 50+, the results of one-way ANOVA showed that the smart speakers with touchscreen control and touch sensor control had a significant difference (p < 0.01) in four main affordances among these three age groups. The smart speakers with mechanical button control and no-button–no-touch control had no significant difference (p > 0.01) in four main affordances among these three age groups. In conclusion, age-range and cultural group affect the affordance of smart home speakers.