Keep the Monkey rolling: Eye-hand Coordination in Super Monkey Ball “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 Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, ph.d student IT-University Copenhagen, Denmark Center for Computer Games Research Copenhagen

The public debate look at eye-hand coordination as a positive feature Game Research have moved into other areas than eye-hand coordination. Introduction 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.

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

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.” This study tried to look at eye-hand coordination in a short-term perspective. Review of earlier research

AuthorYearParticipantsDescription Griffith et.al No change in eye-hand coordination Gagnon198558No change in eye-hand coordination McSwegin et. al198833Video games can improve eye-hand coordination and reaction time over a period of time. Keller No change in eye-hand coordination (Sponsored by Nintendo) Central studies: Other studies of less relevance to eye-hand coordination in paper.

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 minutes. Hard to measure game skills, and likewise obtain other data. Method Test of Visual Motor Skills where you draw a number of figures as accurate as possible (age and norms).

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. Problems

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. Preliminary results However, such a finding would need a real experimental set-up with a control group, pre- and post-test to be studied appropriately. Game  Eye-hand Eye-hand  Game