Public relations no-nos — impersonating consumers

PR firm Reverb Communications is in hot water with the Federal Trade Commission for creating video game reviews at Apple’s iTunes store by posing as unbiased consumers, instead of the paid professional flacks they were. Now there is a somewhat fine line out there in the online world between fandom, fannish shilling and paid shilling, and the FTC frowns highly on the last item in that list if it’s undisclosed. Frowns in it so highly it even requires bloggers at any level of readership and popularity disclose a paid-for ad.

(Full disclosure: I occasionally run sponsored posts I’ve created for clients. Those posts beginning December 1, 2001, as per FTC regulations are clearly marked with a “sponsored” disclaimer. And to add a shameless ad to this aside, if you are interested in a sponsored post on this blog, hit the about page for contact information.)

And as a bit of advice to Reverb Comm., try to stay on right side of the FTC. It can make your life fairly unpleasant. Plus the bad PR your clients get hit with when shenanigans like this get exposed kill your viral efforts.

From the first link way up there in the first sentence:

US regulators have said a public relations firm has agreed to settle charges that it had employees pose as unbiased videogame buyers and post reviews at Apple’s online iTunes store.

The deal requires Reverb Communications and its owner, Tracie Snitker, to remove such potentially deceptive reviews and refrain from the practice, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

“Companies, including public relations firms involved in online marketing need to abide by long-held principles of truth in advertising,” said FTC division of advertising practices director Mary Engle.

“Advertisers should not pass themselves off as ordinary consumers touting a product, and endorsers should make it clear when they have financial connections to sellers.”

Wii helps in stroke recovery

I have solar and nanotechnology release two-fers pretty often since both of those technologies pump out a lot of news. This is bit more rare — a Nintendo Wii two-fer. Here’s the first, and below you can find the second.

The release:

Wii™ video games may help stroke patients improve motor function

Abstract LB P4
Note: The Abstract will be presented at 5:30 p.m. CT

Study highlights:

• The use of virtual reality Wii™ game technology holds the promise as a safe and feasible way to help patients recovering from stroke improve their motor function.
• Researchers said it’s too early to recommend it as standard stroke rehabilitative therapy.

American Stroke Association meeting report:
SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 25, 2010 — Virtual reality game technology using Wii™ may help recovering stroke patients improve their motor function, according to research presented as a late breaking poster at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2010.

The study found the virtual reality gaming system was safe and feasible strategy to improve motor function after stroke.

“This is the first randomized clinical study showing that virtual reality using Wii™ gaming technology is feasible and safe and is potentially effective in enhancing motor function following a stroke, but our study results need to be confirmed in a major clinical trial,” said Gustavo Saposnik, M.D., M.Sc., director of the Stroke Outcomes Research Unit at the Li Ka Shing Institute, St. Michael’s Hospital and lead investigator of the study carried out at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute at the University of Toronto, Canada.

The pilot study focused on movements with survivors’ impaired arms to help both fine (small muscle) and gross (large muscle) motor function.

Twenty survivors (average age 61) of mild to moderate ischemic or hemorrhagic strokes were randomized to playing recreational games (cards or Jenga, a block stacking and balancing game) or Wii™ tennis and Wii™ Cooking Mama, which uses movements that simulate cutting a potato, peeling an onion, slicing meat and shredding cheese.

Both groups received an intensive program of eight sessions, about 60 minutes each over two weeks, initiated about two months following a stroke.

The study found no adverse effects in the Wii™ group, reflecting safety. There was only one reported side effect in the recreational therapy group: nausea or dizziness. The Wii™ group used the technology for about 364 minutes in total session time, reflecting its feasibility. The recreational therapy group’s total time was 388 minutes.

“The beauty of virtual reality is that it applies the concept of repetitive tasks, high-intensity tasks and task-specific activities, that activates special neurons (called ‘mirror neuron system’) involved in mechanisms of cortical reorganization (brain plasticity),” Saposnik said.  “Effective rehabilitation calls for applying these principles.”

Researchers found significant motor improvement in speed and extent of recovery with the Wii™ technology.

“Basically, we found that patients in the Wii™ group achieved a better motor function, both fine and gross, manifested by improvement in speed and grip strength,” Saposnik said. “But it is too early to recommend this approach generally. A larger, randomized study is needed and is underway.”

Wii™ is a virtual reality video gaming system using wireless controllers that interact with the user. A motion detection system allows patients their actions on a television screen with nearly real time sensory feedback.

Co-authors are Mark Bayley, M.D.; Muhammad Mamdani, Pharm.D.; Donna Cheung, O.T.; Kevin Thorpe, Mmath; Judith Hall, M.;Sc.; William McIlroy, Ph.D.; Jacqueline Willems; Robert Teasell, M.D.; and Leonardo G. Cohen, M.D.; for the Stroke Outcome Research Canada (SORCan) Working Group. Author disclosures are on the abstract.

The Effectiveness of Virtual Reality Using Wii Gaming Technology in Stroke Rehabilitation (EVREST) Study was funded by a grant from the Heart and Stroke Foundation (HSFO) and the Ontario Stroke System (OSS) in Canada.

Click here to download audio clips offering perspective on this research from American Stroke Association spokesperson, Pamela Duncan, Ph.D., PT, FAPTA, Professor and Bette Busch Maniscalico Research Fellow, Division of Physical Therapy, Department of Community and Family Medicine; Senior Fellow Duke Center for Clinical Health Policy Research, Duke University, Durham, N.C.

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Statements and conclusions of study authors that are presented at American Heart Association/American Stroke Association scientific meetings are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available atwww.americanheart.org/corporatefunding.

Active video games are good for the elderly

I’ve blogged about the utility of Nintendo’s Wii gaming system before and here’s new research showing that exergames, that is, video games that combine gaming with exercise, can stave off depression in older adults. I love the Wii and heartily recommend the Wii fit plus for all ages to have fun while engaging in light to moderate exercise. It’s great for improving your core strength, muscle tone and balance. (Here’s a link to Amazon for the Wii Fit Plus with Balance Board)

The release, from the second link:

Video games may help combat depression in older adults

		IMAGE: Dilip V. Jeste, M.D., is a researcher at the University of California, San Diego. Click here for more information.

Research at the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine suggests a novel route to improving the symptoms of subsyndromal depression (SSD) in seniors through the regular use of “exergames” – entertaining video games that combine game play with exercise. In a pilot study, the researchers found that use of exergames significantly improved mood and mental health-related quality of life in older adults with SSD.

The study, led by Dilip V. Jeste, MD, Distinguished Professor of psychiatry and neurosciences at UCSD School of Medicine, Estelle and Edgar Levi Chair in Aging, and director of the UC San Diego Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, appears in the March issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

SSD is much more common than major depression in seniors, and is associated with substantial suffering, functional disability, and increased use of costly medical services. Physical activity can improve depression; however, fewer than five percent of older adults meet physical activity recommendations.

“Depression predicts nonadherence to physical activity, and that is a key barrier to most exercise programs,” Jeste said. “Older adults with depression may be at particular risk for diminished enjoyment of physical activity, and therefore, more likely to stop exercise programs prematurely.”

In the study, 19 participants with SSD ranging in age from 63 to 94 played an exergame on the Nintendo Wii video game system during 35-minute sessions, three times a week. After some initial instruction, they chose one of the five Nintendo Wii Sports games to play on their own – tennis, bowling, baseball, golf or boxing.

Using the Wii remote – a wireless device with motion-sensing capabilities – the seniors used their arm and body movements to simulate actions engaged in playing the actual sport, such as swinging the Wii remote like a tennis racket. The participants reported high satisfaction and rated the exergames on various attributes including enjoyment, mental effort, and physical limitations.

“The study suggests encouraging results from the use of the exergames,” Jeste said. “More than one-third of the participants had a 50-percent or greater reduction of depressive symptoms. Many had a significant improvement in their mental health-related quality of life and increased cognitive stimulation.”

Jeste said feedback revealed some participants started the study feeling nervous about how they would perform in the exergames and the technical aspects of game play. However, by the end of the study, most participants reported that learning and playing the videogames was satisfying and enjoyable.

“The participants thought the exergames were fun, they felt challenged to do better and saw progress in their game play,” Jeste said. “Having a high level of enjoyment and satisfaction, and a choice among activities, exergames may lead to sustained exercise in older adults.” He cautioned, however, that the findings were based on a small study, and needed to be replicated in larger samples using control groups. He also stressed that exergames carry potential risks of injury, and should be practiced with appropriate care.

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Additional authors include Dori Rosenberg, Jennifer Reichstadt, Jacqueline Kerr and Greg Norman, UCSD Department of Family and Preventative Medicine; and Colin A. Depp, Ipsit V. Vahia and Barton W. Palmer, UCSD Department of Psychiatry.

The study was funded in part by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the UCSD Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Wisdom from teh internets

Here’s an actual question from an ESPN chat with UFC president Dana White:

Is your eight sided octagon a trademarked fighting arena?

I’m thinking about trademarking the lesser known seven-sided octagon.

Play video games, improve your vision

Seems counterintuitive, but check out this study. Video gamers (especially kids), here’s some ammo against the argument your ruining your eyes playing hours of Halo.

The release from today:

Action video games improve vision

Ability to perceive changes in shades of gray improves up to 58 percent

		IMAGE: This is a Pelli-Robson chart showing decreasing contrast from upper left to lower right. True contrast varies between monitors. Click here for more information.

Video games that involve high levels of action, such as first-person-shooter games, increase a player’s real-world vision, according to research in today’s Nature Neuroscience.

The ability to discern slight differences in shades of gray has long been thought to be an attribute of the human visual system that cannot be improved. But Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, has discovered that very practiced action gamers become 58 percent better at perceiving fine differences in contrast.

“Normally, improving contrast sensitivity means getting glasses or eye surgery—somehow changing the optics of the eye,” says Bavelier. “But we’ve found that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently, and the improvements last for months after game play stopped.”

The finding builds on Bavelier’s past work that has shown that action video games decrease visual crowding and increases visual attention. Contrast sensitivity, she says, is the primary limiting factor in how well a person can see. Bavelier says that the findings show that action video game training may be a useful complement to eye-correction techniques, since game training may teach the visual cortex to make better use of the information it receives.

		IMAGE: This is an animation illustrating the difference between 38 percent contrast and 60 percent contrast — the approximate difference perceived by non-action gamers and action gamers. Click here for more information.

To learn whether high-action games could affect contrast sensitivity, Bavelier, in collaboration with graduate student Renjie Li and colleagues Walt Makous, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, and Uri Polat, professor at the Eye Institute at Tel Aviv University, tested the contrast sensitivity function of 22 students, then divided them into two groups: One group played the action video games “Unreal Tournament 2004” and “Call of Duty 2.” The second group played “The Sims 2,” which is a richly visual game, but does not include the level of visual-motor coordination of the other group’s games. The volunteers played 50 hours of their assigned games over the course of 9 weeks. At the end of the training, the students who played the action games showed an average 43% improvement in their ability to discern close shades of gray—close to the difference she had previously observed between game players and non-game players—whereas the Sims players showed none.

		IMAGE: This is a photo illustrating 58 percent better contrast perception versus “regular ” contrast perception. Click here for more information.

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that contrast sensitivity can be improved by simple training,” says Bavelier. “When people play action games, they’re changing the brain’s pathway responsible for visual processing. These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it, and we’ve seen the positive effect remains even two years after the training was over.”

Bavelier says that the findings suggest that despite the many concerns about the effects of action video games and the time spent in front of a computer screen, that time may not necessarily be harmful, at least for vision.

Bavelier is now taking what she has learned with her video game research and collaborating with a consortium of researchers to look into treatments for amblyopia, a problem caused by poor transmission of the visual image to the brain.

 

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This research was funded by the National Eye Institute and the Office of Naval Research.

Storylines and video games

Yesterday the Daily Dish had post on video games as art.

Here is that post:

Alastair Harper makes the case:

When the popular novel was as new an idea as video games, the great and good were certain, as they were with early cinema, that no sophistication could come from this prose business, especially the sort of filth Samuel Richardson scribbled about

They were proven wrong, as doubters will be about video games. As happened with comic books becoming graphic novels in the 80s, each year there are more developers willing to take risks with storylines, develop more complex moral situations and generally raise the bar so high that it’s becoming plain ignorant for anyone interested in stories to ignore them. […]

We need more real writers getting involved in making video games, not fewer. The results could be astounding. It will happen. Elitist suspicion of a new way of storytelling will only last so long, and I doubt the next generation of writers, who grew up on the likes of Beneath A Steel Sky, would have so many prejudices. Heaven only knows what a great writer could do with this new format. I can’t wait.

Today he posted an excellent rebuttal from a reader, a writer with direct experience in the field.