Evidence of an Effect of Gaming Experience on Visuospatial Attention in Deaf but Not in Hearing Individuals

Abstract

Auditory cortex in congenitally deaf early sign language users reorganizes to support cognitive processing in the visual domain. However, evidence suggests that the potential benefits of this reorganization are largely unrealized. At the same time, there is growing evidence that experience of playing computer and console games improves visual cognition, in particular visuospatial attentional processes. In the present study, we investigated in a group of deaf early signers whether those who reported recently playing computer or console games (deaf gamers) had better visuospatial attentional control than those who reported not playing such games (deaf non-gamers), and whether any such effect was related to cognitive processing in the visual domain. Using a classic test of attentional control, the Eriksen Flanker task, we found that deaf gamers performed on a par with hearing controls, while the performance of deaf non-gamers was poorer. Among hearing controls there was no effect of gaming. This suggests that deaf gamers may have better visuospatial attentional control than deaf non-gamers, probably because they are less susceptible to parafoveal distractions. Future work should examine the robustness of this potential gaming benefit and whether it is associated with neural plasticity in early deaf signers, as well as whether gaming intervention can improve visuospatial cognition in deaf people.

Working Memory for Signs with Poor Visual Resolution: fMRI Evidence of Reorganization of Auditory Cortex in Deaf Signers

“…Behavioral testing included visual test, Visual Puzzles as well as a set of cognitive tasks not included in this study (e.g. Holmer et al 2020 ). The behavioral testing lasted approximately 60 minutes in total.…”

Effects of exogenous and endogenous cues on attentional orienting in deaf adults

“…This indicates that the people who are deaf have a weaker inhibitory control ability in the peripheral visual field. Similarly, Holmer et al (2020) found that deaf participants with gaming experience had better attentional control than deaf group without gaming experience, arguing that this was due to the better anti-interference ability of deaf people who played games. Therefore, weaker executive control may be the reason why the deaf adults cannot make full use of endogenous cues.…”

E-learning is a burden for the deaf and hard of hearing

“…According to the literature, visuospatial attention is altered by early deafness but, interestingly, research about the gaming experience with DHH adults has proven that training visual peripherical responses in gaming (videogames) have an important role in the achievement of better visuospatial attention control, that is, the type of response to gaming challenges might contribute to minor potential visuospatial distractions. However, in our online class, which strongly differs from a traditional classroom context, we acknowledge the inherent problems of the distribution of visual attention, since all the information conveyed was relevant, contrary to the studied effect of the video game experience, which manages to train visuospatial attention by a combination of relevant-irrelevant visual stimuli using Flanker tasks 42 .…”