Video Games

Action Video Games

For purposes of this entry, action video games are defined as those games that have many quickly moving objects, that require effective peripheral processing as items in the periphery must constantly be localized and identified, and where the number of independent items that need to be kept track of far exceeds the circumstances experienced in normal life. In short, an action video game is one that places extraordinary demands on the visual and visuomotor systems. Games from a variety of genres are included as action games, but [Page 1033]most typically they include first-person shooters (such as Halo), third-person shooters (such as Gears of War), and some car racing games (such as Burnout). It is crucial to note that not all types of video games can be expected to affect processing in the same manner or to the same degree. For instance, as fantasy games are typically much less visually demanding than action games, they are unlikely to generate the same types of perceptual changes.

Effect of Action Video Games on Perceptual Skills

Action video game experience has been shown to improve a number of reasonably fundamental aspects of visual perception. Different aspects of vision have been shown to be enhanced as a result of action video game play, including spatial visual search (finding a target among distracters, as in finding a set of keys on a cluttered desk), temporal visual search (finding a target when it is presented in a stream of images one after another, as in seeing a particular actor when you rapidly flip through television stations), the number of independently moving items that can be concurrently tracked (as in keeping track of five children running on the playground who are surrounded by identically dressed “distracting” children), dividing attention between two locations, mentally rotating objects, dual-task performance, and the spatial resolution of vision (the ability to resolve extremely small items even when other distracting items are crowded around). There are also myriad cases wherein action video game experience leads to substantially faster response times to visually presented information. Although the majority of the work has been done using young adult (college-age) individuals, similar effects have been noted in both young children and the elderly.

Demonstrating Causation

Typically in these experiments, performance is first contrasted between avid action video game players (VGPs—individuals who play 5 or more hours a week of action video games) and nonaction video game players (NVGPs). If, as in the experiments noted earlier (visual search, tracking objects, etc.), VGPs are seen to outperform NVGPs, a second step must be taken to demonstrate that a causative relationship exists. After all, it could simply be the case that individuals who are born with better perceptual skills are more successful at video games and thus tend to play them more than individuals who are born with poorer perceptual skills. To address this question, groups of NVGPs are specifically trained on action video games (anywhere from 10 to 50 hours). Their performance on the measure of interest (visual search ability, for instance) is assessed a few days before and after training. These results are then compared to a control group that is trained for the same duration on a nonaction video game, which allows the researcher to control for test-retest improvements (one would expect someone to improve on a test the second time he or she takes it regardless of intervention) and for psychological effects, such as the Hawthorne effect (subjects who are watched and who have an interest taken in their performance tend to improve their performance). In the cases previously listed, those individuals trained on action games were seen to improve by greater margins than the control group, thus establishing that action video game experience causes enhancements in perceptual ability.

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