V11-30

Question

In an attempt to prove the effect of computer gaming on 'cognitive flexibility' – ability to quickly adapt and switch between different tasks, and to execute different job-functions simultaneously – researchers recruited two groups of volunteers. One group played a real-time strategy game, which requires frequent decision making and high organising skills, while the other a life-simulation game, which does not require much memory or many tactics. Those who played the strategy game performed better in cognitive flexibility tasks than those who played life simulation game.
 
Which of the following can be conclusively determined from the above argument:

A. If a person played computer games for a long period, he would have high cognitive flexibility. 
B. Playing strategy games generally improves the cognitive flexibility of a person more than playing life simulation games does. 
C. If a person does not have high cognitive flexibility, he has not played strategy games for a considerable period of time. 
D. Some people speculate that certain kinds of entertainment may influence multi-tasking ability. 
E. Computer gaming has an influence on how people execute their tasks.

Bunuel · Answer

Official Solution:

In an attempt to prove the effect of computer gaming on 'cognitive flexibility' – ability to quickly adapt and switch between different tasks, and to execute different job-functions simultaneously – researchers recruited two groups of volunteers. One group played a real-time strategy game, which requires frequent decision making and high organising skills, while the other a life-simulation game, which does not require much memory or many tactics. Those who played the strategy game performed better in cognitive flexibility tasks than those who played life simulation game.
 
Which of the following can be conclusively determined from the above argument:

A. If a person played computer games for a long period, he would have high cognitive flexibility. 
B. Playing strategy games generally improves the cognitive flexibility of a person more than playing life simulation games does. 
C. If a person does not have high cognitive flexibility, he has not played strategy games for a considerable period of time. 
D. Some people speculate that certain kinds of entertainment may influence multi-tasking ability. 
E. Computer gaming has an influence on how people execute their tasks.

(A) The experiment attempts to prove that strategy games, not all computer games, have a positive effect on cognitive flexibility.
 
(B) Unless it is established that the group that played strategy games did not already perform better than the group playing simulation game, this conclusion cannot be drawn.
 
(C). This statement is equivalent to that if a person played strategy games for a considerable period of time, he would have high cognitive flexibility.

Unless the cognitive flexibility test performance of the group before the experiment is not known, this statement cannot be concluded. Moreover, even it is established that playing strategy games improves cognitive flexibility, it does not necessarily mean that improvement would be enough for any person to reach high level of cognitive flexibility; it could so happen that by playing strategy games a person with very low cognitive flexibility improved to a low or medium level.
 
(D)  Correct  The researchers attempted to prove the effect of computer gaming, a kind of entertainment, on the ability to execute different job-functions simultaneously, multi-tasking. Since the researchers attempted to prove, it can be concluded that they speculated a relation between computer gaming and multi-tasking
 
(E) Unless the test result before the experiment is compared with that after and other possible causes of improvement are ruled out, this statement cannot be concluded.

Answer: D

deepak268 · Answer

I strongly feel E is the answer, as its clearly shows the game has some influence

sayantanc2k · Answer

It is possible that those who played the strategy game could already perform better in cognitive flexibility tasks than those who played life simulation game even before playing the respective games. There is no mention of any tests that were carried out BEFORE playing the games. Hence option E cannot be conclusively determined.

warriorguy · Answer

From the question stem, we have:

Those who played the strategy game performed better in cognitive flexibility tasks than those who played life simulation game.

From the official explanation, we have:

Unless it is established that the group that played strategy games did not already perform better than the group playing simulation game, this conclusion cannot be drawn

What am I missing?

sayantanc2k · Answer

Option B implies the following:
Cause: playing strategy games. Effect: more improvement in cognitive facility.

What if the people who played strategy games were already better (naturally better - even before playing the game) in cognitive facility? In that case Option B is NOT the right conclusion. Therefore the OE states so.

dotsoftme · Answer

in option D, the option is only talking about some people but in question stem, the observation is found for many people. Please explain this

miag · Answer

Hi,

I think focus should be on 2 points:
i) The option talks about t hose speculating (i.e. researchers) not the groups of volunteers . 
ii) We don't know how many of these researchers there are so we cannot go on to conclude "many." For reference:   Some  :  from at least 1 to ALL,  Many : 3 to ALL.  Now, since we know researchers is plural, all we can conclude for certain is that this group is atleast 2 which = some, but we can't conclude it to be many.

Hope this helps!

dhruva09 · Answer

Bunuel  Can you please quantify on the reasoning for eliminating option B, I do see the premise mentioning- " Those who played the strategy game performed better in cognitive flexibility tasks than those who played life simulation game." , which looks pretty straight forward.

Goldenfuture · Answer

Same here  Bunuel  - Your explanation says better is not provided - but that fact is provided in the premise.

miag · Answer

Hi,

I think you are missing a beat here. Focus on the difference in wording in the option choice and the passage: 
 Those who played the strategy game performed better in cognitive flexibility tasks than those who played life simulation game. 
 Playing strategy games generally improves the cognitive flexibility of a person more than playing life simulation games does.

The passage shows only a performance difference, not a causal improvement.
 It tells us that strategy-game players performed better than life-simulation players, but it does not prove that playing strategy games improves cognitive flexibility. The difference could be due to pre-existing traits. Option B incorrectly turns correlation into causation, which cannot be concluded.

Hope this helps!

V11-30

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