Keep the Monkey rolling: Eye-hand Coordination in Super Monkey Ball

1
Keep the Monkey rolling Eye-hand Coordination
in Super Monkey Ball
Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, ph.d student
IT-University Copenhagen, Denmark Center for
Computer Games Research Copenhagen e-mail
sen_at_itu.dk www.game-research.com
I recently learned something quite interesting
about video games. Many young people have
developed incredible hand, eye and brain
coordination in playing these games. The air
force believes these kids will be our outstanding
pilots should they fly our jets Ronald Reagan
2
Introduction
The public debate look at eye-hand coordination
as a positive feature Game Research have moved
into other areas than eye-hand coordination.

• Definition
• Everyday conception Eye-hand coordination as the
  application of vision to control and guide arm
  movements.
• Research definition the process of coordinating
  movements of the eyes and hand/arm system so that
  they both move toward the same target.

3
Agenda

• Review of earlier research on eye-hand
  coordination
• Method for measuring eye-hand coordination
• Problems in studying games in natural environment
• Results of pilot project from eye-hand
  coordination

4
Review of earlier research
Research is limited and dated, however there
does not seem to be any differences between
non-players and players in respect to eye-hand
coordination As a consequence it has not seemed
relevant to study whether video games may
potentially improve eye-hand coordination. Thi
s study tried to look at eye-hand coordination in
a short-term perspective.
5
Review of earlier research
Central studies
Author Year Participants Description
Griffith et.al. 1983 62 No change in eye-hand coordination
Gagnon 1985 58 No change in eye-hand coordination
McSwegin et. al 1988 33 Video games can improve eye-hand coordination and reaction time over a period of time.
Keller 1992 127 No change in eye-hand coordination (Sponsored by Nintendo)
Other studies of less relevance to eye-hand
coordination in paper.
6
Method

• The setting
• 7 boys - 10 to 13 years.
• A free natural environment for 3 hours after
  school centre.
• Informal, observation, test and interviews.
• Not confined to the game room for a specific
  period.
• Most only played for 15-20 minutes.
• Hard to measure game skills, and likewise obtain
  other data.

Test of Visual Motor Skills where you draw a
number of figures as accurate as possible (age
and norms).
7
Problems

• The free environment
• Self-selection
• Time on task
• Interference from non-gaming
• Noise in general
• Stress level high
• The adult discourse
• Interview subjects on violence were brought up.

8
Preliminary results
Some indication of improvement from playing the
game the test score mean is higher for the after
game session group. Furthermore, one of the
players in the after game group ranks very low.
Eye-hand ? Game
Game ? Eye-hand
However, such a finding would need a real
experimental set-up with a control group, pre-
and post-test to be studied appropriately.