Enhancing inhibition ability through situational training games: effectiveness, motivation and experience

Abstract Traditional cognitive training often relies on repetitive exercises, which can lead to boredom and diminished engagement. Game-based design has the potential to address this issue by making training more engaging and enjoyable. Nevertheless, many existing cognitive training games are not grounded in theoretical frameworks. In addition, many situational training games lack meaningful connections to real-life scenarios, which may influence training effectiveness and learner experience. To bridge these gaps, this study proposes a situational cognitive training game framework, which consist of cognitive training foundation (classic inhibition trainings), motivational design framework (game elements), and human–computer interaction framework (authentic contexts). Furthermore, a series of innovative situational training games was developed based on the framework. To ensure that training-oriented games could still retain the affective advantages of game-based learning, we compared these games with casual games from three perspectives: training outcomes, motivation, and game experience. A total of 38 university students from Taiwan participated in the experiment, engaging in both types of games. The findings revealed that the cognitive training games significantly increased inhibition ability, comparing post-test scores between groups and within group. Moreover, participants reported higher motivation, particularly in the dimension of confidence, when playing situational training games than when playing casual games. No significant difference was found in overall game experience between the two types of games. These findings suggest that situational training games can effectively enhance inhibition ability while sustaining motivation and providing a comparable game experience to casual games. The results highlight the importance of designing executive function training games grounded in theory and incorporating game elements such as real-life authenticity and appropriate challenges to support learners’ sense of relatedness and autonomy.