Subjects

My study will focus on adolescent teens and young adults from ages 13 to 21.Subjects were recruited through simple questionnaires where they were asked their views on marijuana. Subjects were also asked if they’ve ever smoked weed or not. How often do they smoke? And would they consider themselves as “pot heads”. Subjects were also asked what kind of marijuana they preferred to smoke. For this study I want to focus on the type of marijuana and no marijuana. So I will have two experimental groups with two different strengths or types of weed smokers. And as a control group I will have the non-smokers. I only included subjects with no history of smoking and also those who have no family demographics of smokers. Then I used stratified sampling as a mean to place my experimental group into two different levels which is generally those who smoke greens and those who smoke a type of marijuana called sour. Then my control group consisted of a cluster of non-smokers between the ages of 13 and 21. Subjects were excluded if they have past history of smoking anything other than marijuana. Subjects were excluded if the use the substance K-2, and crack cocaine, smoke cigars and cigarettes. This study is only focusing on marijuana. The average age of the subjects was about 17 also subjects were both male and female participants but there was a more prevalence of male participants ranging from a ratio of 4:1. Also there are a total of 150 participants. Subjects were motivated to participate in the research by being offered credit. A school credit was given to those in younger grades and for those ages 16 and above, they were given a small stipend to participate in this study.

Apparatus

I designed my own my own headsbdandz game using information from the NIDA about marijuana. In order to test how marijuana effects on attention increases the frequency of impulsive behaviors, I will have my participants play a game called heads up. In this game students will first be given a sheet of fact will obtain several different fats about marijuana. So some ranging from the different types of marijuana to the many different fun facts such as origin, prevalence etc. So this game will be designed similar to the heads up game where participants will have a head band which will hold a noun or fact on a small index card. The index card will be placed into the designated slot on the head band. The objective of the game is to see which group is able to have better impulse control and less affected attention and memory recall. Each group is given two weeks to memorize the facts and groups with marijuana smokers will have to smoke before they begin the game. Each group will be given about 30 minutes to an hour to play. Subjects also can only ask questions such as “am I a person, place or thing?” and corresponding questions which will pertain to the material read. In each group there will be a score keeper and a observer who will be recording any impulsive behaviors. Some behaviors that we will be looking for are yelling, laughing, and any out of the norm behaviors which can be those who display hyper active behaviors, and lastly any signs of fatigue and excessive hunger or thirst. The stimuli will be presented to the researchers in the game. Subjects won’t be informed of reasons why they must memorize the facts. The stimuli for the experimental groups will be presented to them in the rooms. They’ll have the opportunity to either smoke while playing the game or smoke beforehand. The responses were measured by recording the number of correct answers in total for each group and also by recording behaviors exhibited in the participants.

Procedures

The conditions that were created to compare is how does low strength marijuana, high strength marijuana and no marijuana effects on attention influences the frequency of impulsive behaviors. Subjects in each condition were asked to memorize a list of facts from the NIDA website about marijuana. Then subjects were asked to play a modified version of heads up which will include the information that they were asked to memorize. The subjects were informed of an informational session which would just talk about substance abuse. They were told that this information will focus on marijuana use in America. Then subjects were given an informative fact sheet at the end of the session. They were then told to come back in two weeks, with the information memorized. To collect my data, I had a total of 5 other workers who were paired into three groups of two. Both individuals were given different task, one being to tally correct answers and the other being the frequency of impulse behaviors displayed in amongst each individual in the group every 2 minutes. This is done so that no information will be left out because both individuals will only be focusing on the task at hand.

Today within our society Marijuana is used by many Americans. Marijuana is a combination of dried seeds, stems and flowers of a hemp plant named Cannabis Sativa. This plant is a drug because of a mind altering chemical named delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is found in the plant. This drug today is being used by individuals of all age groups, some for recreational purpose and others for their own use.

Within some areas of the United States marijuana has become legalized for medical purposes, for example it is used by cancer patients in order to help them cope with chemo therapy pain. This drug is becoming more acceptable in our society because people are beginning to see the positive effects and uses of the drug. Its recreational purposes to cope with stress, build up appetite, help lose weight etc., are some reasons why people are having more open views towards marijuana use. But still, marijuana has its cons, which outweighs the good. Many studies have observed the negative effects of marijuana on attention, behaviors such as mood alterations, impulsivity and many more.

Several studies have been done to study the effects of marijuana on our behavior. Its been said that in both men and women marijuana may display similar affects in cognitive abilities as a result of marijuana use (Anderson et al., 2010). Several studies have been done to analyze the effects of marijuana on the impulsivity of preteens and young adults. One study observed how level of impulse control and attention led to the exposure or use of drugs and alcohol in adolescents / preteens. This study found that adolescents who have shown continuous increased problems with attention and impulse control from a young age, end up developing substance abuse problems such as marijuana addiction. (King, Fleming, Mohann, and Catalano, 2011) Dougherty et al., (2012) found that marijuana is associated to consequence impulsivity sensitivity, cognitive and behavioral impairments and short term memory recall. However, it’s been exemplified that the more control and resistance a person obtains results to increased control over the “high” and its affects (Simons and Carey, 2002).

References
Anderson et al. 2010. Sex, drugs and cognition: Effects of marijuana. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs.
Dougherty et al. 2013. Impulsivity, attention, memory, and decision-making amongst adolescent marijuana users. Pharmacology.
King, Fleming, Mohann, & Catalano. 2011. Changes in self-control problems and attention problems during middle school predict alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use during high school. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 25.1.
Simons & Carey 2002. Risk and vulnerability for marijuana use problems: The role of affect dysregulation. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 16.1.

This week i research a couple of articles based on my research study for this game that I will be designing. Initially I wanted to focus on music therapy and autism disorder and examine how heavy stimulated verses lightly stimulated music will be more effective in treating this disorder. But a recent debate of the uses of marijuana pushed me to focus on this. The benefits as well as the negative aspect of marijuana use in adolescents.

Today in our society there are many negative perceptions of marijuana. This cannabis drug is studied to be a suppressant, it provides users with a temporary high and negatively affects ones ability to focus. Its taught to to be viewed as a gateway drug , yet in some countries this drug is used to treat cancer patients and also for other medical treatments. In my overall study I want to develop a game which will explain both the pros and the cons of this drug.

One thing that stood out to me in the process of my research was the effects that marijuana plays on a persons attention and impulsive behaviors. This study will focus on examining how marijuana affects the cognitive and behavioral process.  It can be said that when smoking marijuana one my display high impulsive behaviors despite hazy or low attention quality. I don’t have an exact thesis yet, but i’m hoping that with more research I will be able to determine and take an exact stance.

For this week i played a game endorsed by icivics.com, the name of the game is We are the Jury: Do I have a right?.  The general purpose of the game is to help students learn their rights . The uses an emergent story line to aid to the progression of this game. In this game the player is allowed to pick an avatar that will represent them and a partner that will initially work along side them. Here in this game i played a lawyer who was starting her own law firm, my avatars name was Lisa Lee and her associate was a man named Chuck Freepress. In this game each lawyer that is hired to work in this firm specializes in a certain number of amendments, so all the player has to do is match a potential client with a lawyer whose specialty meets the need of their case.

“We are the Jury: Do I have right?”, promotes learning through its general use of match skills. Here the player must first determine if the customers issue is debatable and then they must pair it to the corresponding lawyer who specializes in that certain amendment. For example my first associate Chuck Freepress , was an expert of the first amendment  freedom of speech. If a client comes in with a scenario that corresponds to this amendment then the case is given to Mr. Freepress. The game required the player to win cases in order to build prestige. Prestige helps promote the firm and the firm begins to gain popularity. By doing this your able to gain more coins in order to unlock new character who specializes in several different amendments, some faster than others.

This game is deemed playful. It was by far the best out of the 3 different games that I’ve played in this class. The makers really did a good job at stimulating player and game interaction, the story line was engaging and stimulated a great learning environment. For the player it evokes both the cognitive and physiological processes; where the player may feel a little pressured by the sudden surplus of clients entering the law firm. We try not to get them to leave and in the cognitive aspect players are memorizing amendments and their functions. Over all i think this game is really interesting . For players  who enjoy sims , farm animals or anything where you’re in charge and can reign over your own community, this will definitely be the game for you.

This week I played a game designed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration. The name of the game was called “Talk. They Hear You”. This game was designed to help parents practice effective conversational skills for serious Talks. In this game the talk was focused on alcohol intake. I played a mom who was trying to talk to her daughter about underage drinking. This game is a emergent game that achievers and socialize-rs can play because it talks about social drinking and undergoing peer pressure. This game consisted of a series of steps known as achievements. There as a total of 10 achievements that had to be reached, and there was tips and the bottom of the screen displayed an icon of two different people , a father and his daughter who was introduced in the beginning of the game. Their purpose was to help serve as a guide if you weren’t meeting the achievements or picked the wrong phrase choice which didn’t really  discourage drinking. Overall the game was simple to play, with easy functional mechanics such as tapping the characters head and choosing a topic and possible corresponding statement choices in that section. I didn’t find it too interesting, but compared to the game I played last week, “Long Story”, this game was more interesting because of the tips and the fun facts. I like how at the end of the game the child gave her own synopsis of what she retained from the talk and i think that this game is beneficial and informative. It focuses on the main objective, showing players where they possibly went wrong and tips on how to change their approach.

This week I played a game called Long Story, I was able to download it onto my phone through google play. This game was designed to help teens practice dealing with some challenges they may face in high school. This game is simple and easy to play , however, in my opinion the automated scenarios and fixed answers choices make the  game a little boring. I think that for younger adolescence it might be more fun and engaging , but definitely not for young adults. This game motivates some form of interaction but its not enough to actually be considered engaging. This game is mainly for role play and learning how to respond to various social situations. Long Story can be improved if the  makers improve the animation it was hard to tell the difference between male and female avatars. This game can also be improved by allowing more to be done on the players end. If players are allowed more say in the answer choices (in the given response for a specific scenario i.e what to respond to your bully . More choices other than leave me alone, would be preferred.). I also feel that although the makers tried to make it as close to reality as possible it still lacks realism,.