Effect of action video games on the spatial distribution of visuospatial attention.

Abstract

The authors investigated the effect of action gaming on the spatial distribution of attention. The authors used the flanker compatibility effect to separately assess center and peripheral attentional resources in gamers versus nongamers. Gamers exhibited an enhancement in attentional resources compared with nongamers, not only in the periphery but also in central vision. The authors then used a target localization task to unambiguously establish that gaming enhances the spatial distribution of visual attention over a wide field of view. Gamers were more accurate than nongamers at all eccentricities tested, and the advantage held even when a concurrent center task was added, ruling out a trade-off between central and peripheral attention. By establishing the causal role of gaming through training studies, the authors demonstrate that action gaming enhances visuospatial attention throughout the visual field. Keywords video games; attention; useful field of viewVisual acuity, or the ability to discriminate small changes in shape in central vision, is a key determinant of vision. Ask someone how good their vision is, and they will typically comment on their ability to read a sign, to recognize faces from afar, or to score 20/20 on an optometrist's eye chart. However, many of the visual tasks people complete on a day-to-day basis bear little relation to the ability to read the bottom line on an eye chart. For instance, driving does not require perfect acuity (many U.S. states require that one's vision be only 20/40 to receive a driver's license). Instead, the most common visual demands present while driving involve focusing attention on relevant stimuli, such as pedestrians, animals, and other cars, while ignoring the many irrelevant distractors that clutter the visual environment. The dichotomy between visual acuity and visual attention has been exemplified by many studies (Ball, Beard, Roenker, Miller, & Griggs, 1988;Ball & Owsley, 1991;Ball, Owsley, & Beard, 1990;Ball, Owsley, Sloane, Roenker, & Bruni, 1993;Intriligator & Cavanagh, 2001;Owsley, Ball, & Keeton, 1995;Sekuler & Ball, 1986), with the general finding being that simple tests of visual acuity and perimetry are poor predictors of performance on tasks that demand effective visuospatial attention.A number of paradigms have been developed with the goal of quantitatively measuring visual selective attention

Twenty years of load theory—Where are we now, and where should we go next?

“…Overall, gamers are also much faster at search tasks across all levels of load and congruency. Gamers are more accurate than nongamers under all conditions, and this effect holds even when they are performing a concurrent central task, ruling out the possibility that this effect derives from improved direction of attention (Green & Bavelier, 2006). The benefits of gaming in other tasks such as the attentional blink paradigm (Green & Bavelier, 2003) suggest that these studies reflect real improvements in visual attention rather than greater distractibility (Lavie, 2005).…”

Enhanced visual short-term memory in action video game players

“…Specifically, action video game play has been shown to result in enhanced allocation of visual attention across space (Green & Bavelier, 2003, 2006a, greater temporal resolution of visual attention (Green & Bavelier, 2003), reduced attentional capture (Chisholm, Hickey, Theeuwes, & Kingstone, 2010;Chisholm & Kingstone, 2012), greater dual-task and task-switching performance (Colzato, van Leeuwen, van den Wildenberg, & Hommel, 2010;Strobach, Frensch, & Schubert, 2012; but see also Donohue, James, Eslick, & Mitroff, 2012), overall greater attentional capacity (Green & Bavelier, 2003), superior selective attention (Bavelier, Achtman, Mani, & Focker, 2012), and enhanced visual processing speed (Dye, Green, & Bavelier, 2009b). Notably, training studies have also provided evidence consistent with a causal link between action video game play and these benefits to visual attention (Dye et al, 2009b;Feng, Spence, & Pratt, 2007;Green & Bavelier, 2003, 2006a, 2007Green, Pouget, & Bavelier, 2010; but see also Boot et al, 2008). In addition, AVGPs also demonstrate a compelling processing speed advantage: Dye et al (2009b) reported significantly reduced response times among AVGPs in the context of a variety of perceptual and attentional tasks.…”

How to Assess Gaming-Induced Benefits on Attention and Working Memory

“…Note that in this Motion Object Tracking design, unlike others, participants are not asked to recall each initially cued target, thus minimizing the role of WM and providing a more objective measure of object tracking. Overall, the ability to track moving objects is enhanced by action videogame play in adults 25,26,32 and in children. 30,34 Sustained attention…”

“…Green and Bavelier 9,25 showed that action videogaming experience improves performance on all subtests of the UFOV, but especially on the third subtest, which requires selection of a target among distractors. It is notable that the investigators showed benefits to peripheral visuospatial attention at far lateral eccentricities that were outside the visual field of typical gameplay.…”