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An interesting article that discusses the highlights of the Learning Without Frontiers conference, which took place in London last week. One such highlight--a professor of neuroscience at Bristol University addressing the neuroscience behind engagement with video and computer games.

Investigating how our hyper-consumption of media affects attention and engagement.

A fascinating talk on one aspect of motivation - willpower. Who knew that lower glucose levels decrease willpower, and that performing self-control on one task decreases subsequent control on the next task?

I came across some of Baumeister's articles while researching for my neuroscience project last semester and was fascinated. Thanks for posting this talk; I really look forward to watching it!

Tying in with our conversation about flow, this article mentions a way to physically induce flow through "transcranial direct current stimulation".

I have to say..I am a bit weirded out by this article. The days of Johnny Mnemonic are not far behind.

One point not covered in the article is that there may be something inherently similar about "gamers" (such as a motivational, attentional, or perceptive profile) that makes them different types of learners than others. Yes, it's true that some people deeply enjoy the structured (some more/some less) challenges provided by games, both board and virtual...but others do not. The big question is, does it benefit a majority of learners (or, say, a majority of at-risk learners) to invest in curricula that leverages game-based-learning?

It may stray a bit from the topic of motivation, but here's a neuroscience article (that I found quite interesting) that discusses how a difference in striatal volume appears to affect how one's performance improves in playing a game: Erickson, K. I., Boot, W. R., Basak, C., Neider, M. B., Prakash, R. S., Voss, M. W., Graybiel, A. M., et al. (2010). Striatal volume predicts level of video game skill acquisition. Cerebral Cortex, 20(11), 1-9. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp293

A new study suggests that a video before bed or a recording played while asleep can enhance learning and memory.