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Biography

Video Games: Brain Gain or Drain? with Jayne Gackenbach Ph.D

Jayne Gackenbach received her Ph.D. in psychology in the U.S. at Virginia Commonwealth University in 1978. She is currently a professor at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

For the first 20 years of her career she focused on research into dreams, and especially lucid dreams, with several books and many articles and book chapters. Her books include:
o Conscious mind, sleeping brain: Perspectives on lucid dreaming,
o Control your dreams

• She is one of the past presidents of the International Association for the Study of Dreams.

• The highlight of her professional dream career was when she presented her research into lucid dreaming to the Tibetan Dalai Lama at a meeting on Sleep, Dreaming and Dying in India in 1992. The proceedings appeared in Sleeping, Dreaming and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness with the Dalai Lama.

• In 2010 she was prominently featured in a documentary on dreams which accompanies the blueray DVD release of the movie Inception.

It seemed an odd shift to begin work on new media including the internet and video games in the last third of her career. But when she bought her son a Nintendo in the mid-1990’s she became aware of its pull. Thus began over a decade of research, publication and media interviews on the internet and video game play.

• She has several books on these topics including:
o Psychology and the Internet: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Transpersonal Implication (2nd edition)
o cyber.rules
o Video Games and Consciousness (in preparation for Nova Science Publishers)

• She has focused upon the impact of gaming on various states of consciousness including dreams, flow, and absorption. She has 14 refereed journal publications and four book chapters on video game play as well as 34 papers presented at professional conferences. Jayne also co-teaches a course at Grant MacEwan University on video games covering the psychological side.

• In 2010 her work on video game play was featured in over 100 media outlets and included magazines, newspapers, and news agencies such as New Scientist Magazine, Bottom Line Women’s Health, LiveScience, XBox Magazine, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun as well as both Edmonton papers. Online news agencies such as MSNBC, Yahoo news and Canwest covered this research. There was also international coverage with interviews from journalists in England, Australia, Brazil and the Netherlands. Radio and television coverage of my work in the last 6 months included, BBC London, CBC Edmonton and Calgary, and Global TV.

Archived Shows

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Hello Avatar Author Interviewed

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• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Games for Health Journal Founded

  This time we will be talking with the editor of a new journal devoted to games for health, Bill Ferguson. Premiering in February of 2012, Games for Health: Research, Development, and Clinical Applications, will offer original peer-reviewed research art...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Attention, Memory and Information Processing Advantages to Gaming

  In this show we’ll be talking about various perceptual and cognitive advantages to gaming. Dr. Walter Boot is the director of the Attention and Training laboratory in the Department of Psychology at Florida State University. In his lab they have test...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Military and Gaming

  In this show the use of games in the military is explored. In a recent study in the journal, Military Psychology, it was found that 43% of their over 10,000 soldier respondents reported gaming on a weekly basis. These individuals were largely male, you...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Horror in Film and Video Games

  In this show I am talking with Dr. Barry Grant, who is a professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film at Brock University in Ontario, Canada. Our topic is horror in film and video games. As an expert and teacher in film genres...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Personality and Video Game Violence

  Dr. Patrick Markey director of the Interpersonal Lab at Villanova University is interviewed. He has examined how personality can be a predictor of aggression resulting from gaming. He talks about three personality traits that are particularly likely to...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Past and Future of Gaming

  There are two parts to this show. First the history of video game chapter is read from my forthcoming book, Playing Reality, by my coauthor who happens to be my son, Teace Snyder! As you know from earlier shows the reason that I got interested in video...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Narrative and Gaming: Influences of Mixed Media

  Dr. Evelyn Ellerman, chair of the Department of Communication Studies at Athabasca University, is interviewed in this show. She talks about the implications of gaming for the field of Communication Studies. Dr. Ellerman will address the role of narrati...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Teaching Experts: From Gamers to Lifelong Learners

  This interview is with Dr. Jose Zagal, who is with DePaul University. He is the author of Ludoliteracy. In his article in Game Studies, “Novices, Gamers, and Scholars: Exploring the Challenges of Teaching About Games”, Dr. Zagal explains his doctor...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Constructive and Cooperative Gaming

  Dr. Amy Bruckman is interviewed this time. She is an Associate Professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. She and her students in the Electronic Learning Communities research group, do research about online communities an...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – The Casual Game Revolution

  Dr. Jesper Juul, author of The Casual Game Revolution and Half-Real is interviewed in this show. He is a Danish game researcher who is currently a Visiting Assistant Arts Professor at the New York University Game Center. As a casual gamer myself, I was...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Middle Aged Female Gamers!

  Mia Consalvo who is has just begun teaching at Concordia University in Montreal after a year as a visiting scholar at MIT. She is the co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Internet Studies published by Blackwell and is author of Cheating: Gaining Ad...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Game Transfer Phenomena

  My guest this week is Angelica Ortiz de Gortari, who will talk about the Game Transfer Phenomena. This young woman is working on her doctoral degree in the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University in the United Kingdom. Origina...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Translations to Reality: Interview with a Psychologist who is a Serious Gamer

  This show is a conversation with a female serious video game player. Eva Murzyn, who is originally from Poland, completed her PhD at the University of Dundee in the United Kingdom. Her research on individual differences in black and white dreaming, and...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Children, Media and Video Games – A First Look

  Two elements of children and video games are covered in this show. First I summarize a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation on media use by children 8 to 18. By looking at all media use by children we can contextualize their use of video games....

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Exergaming

  Tad Stach is a computer science doctoral student at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Tad’s current research is in the field of human-computer interaction. I interviewed him during the Game Developers conference. Tad is exploring how exercise ca...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Gamification. Community Involvement Made Fun by Applying Video Game Play Mechanics

  Gamification is the use of game play mechanics for non-game applications. It works by making technology more engaging and by encouraging desired behaviors, taking advantage of humans' psychological predisposition to engage in activities that are fun an...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Simulation or Game: PTSD Training Game

  In this show the principles of gaming and practice in virtual realms are illustrated with the work of Dr. Glenn Albright, of Kognito Interactive. He talks about a role-playing game he has helped develop “to train family members of returning veterans ...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Games for Health: Avatars

  This show is coming to you from the annual Games for Health meeting. This is a group of researchers, developers and service workers who are examining video game play as a way to service health needs. This show starts with a brief summary of the keynote...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Video Game Play and Meditation, Spirituality and Dreams?

  This time Jayne reviews her own research into the effects of gaming on nighttime dreams as well as her thesis that gaming can be framed as a type of meditative experience. She then interviews Moses Silbiger, a gamer and integral coach and consultant, w...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Addiction vs. Play

  Is video game addiction simply drug free coping or is it the ultimate expression of play? While the Chinese are taking action against extreme video game play, there are also concerns in many households in North America that gamers play at the expense o...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Video Game Play and Relaxation?

  To some it seems quite obvious that playing a video game is relaxing while for others this claim may seem like an oxymoron, an obvious contradiction. As it turns out there is now substantive research supporting the notion that video game play can be qu...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? – Biting the Bullet: Does Playing Violent Games Cause Aggression? It Depends

  Communication Studies has examined the history of the introduction to all new media from poetry to the printing press to video game play and what is remarkably consistent is that fear seems to accompany each media when first introduced. In the case of ...

• VideoGames: Brain Gain or Drain? - FYI

  Ever wonder what’s the truth and what’s media hype regarding video games? This show will answer your questions. In this first one, a brief overview of some of the most pertinent and controversial issues surrounding video games today are touched upo...