Adani Abutto

adaniabutto[at]gmail[dot]com

I’m a master’s student in Psychology at the University of Munich (LMU).

I’m interested in how children come to understand and obtain knowledge about the world, and how they produce corresponding explanations. What role do explanation-seeking curiosity and exploration play in these processes, and what does that teach us about human intelligence?

Relatedly, I’m also curious about how we can encourage curiosity and playful exploration in formal and informal learning environments, especially in relation to science subjects. What are ways to design and use learning technologies to provide students with personalized and engaging learning experiences?

In my free time, I sometimes blog and dabble in small webdesign / data viz / misc. coding projects. I also always enjoy exchanging ideas with others, so please don’t hesitate to reach out!

News

Jun 23, 2022	My fellow students and I are currently running a survey on Need for Cognition (NFC) – participation only takes 1-2 minutes: https://www.soscisurvey.de/Assessment_questionnaire/
May 16, 2022	I have been selected to join the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) as a student fellow and merit scholarship grantee!

Research Activity

For a complete list, see my research page or my CV.

Research Report

COVID-19-Sorglosigkeitsstudie [COVID-19-Carefreeness Study] (in press)

Abutto, A. B., Waller, G., and Bernath, J.

Zürich: Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. 2022

B.Sc. Thesis

More Than Just Fun and Games? An Investigation of the Link Between Video Game Play and Cognitive, Perceptual, and Attentional Skills

Abutto, A. B.

Sep 2021

Abstract PDF

As of today, the world counts around 2.55 billion video game players. Among the many games available to them, League of Legends (LoL), a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game, counts among the most popular. Not only does its rapid pace and action-filled content make it fun, it also places a high demand on the players’ cognition, perception and attention. The present study inquired in what way playing such a game is linked to improved performance on select cognitive tasks. For this purpose, LoL players’ (n = 33) and non-video game players’ (n = 33) average reaction time and error rate was compared across an onlineadministered simple reaction time task, choice reaction time task, and visual search task. Results showed LoL players outperforming NVGPs on said measures of processing speed and visual search, with effect sizes ranging from medium-sized (ƒ = .237) to large (ƒ = .448). Moreover, age had a further effect (ƒ = .132 to .324) on performance, with younger participants achieving better results on average. Among the group of LoL players (N = 212), playing the game well (skill level) was associated with improved cognitive task performance: The higher-skilled the player, the lower was their RT on the SRT (r = -.20). Although correlations with other outcome variables did not reach significance, six further small effects were registered (r = -.06 to -.17). Overall, results indicate that regularly playing an Action-RTS game such as LoL may show links to a more favorable cognitive profile.