Perceptual, Attentional, and Executive Functioning After Real-Time Strategy Video Game Training: Efficacy and Relation to In-Game Behavior

Abstract

Recent meta-analyses and meta-analytic reviews of most common approaches to cognitive training broadly converge on describing a lack of transfer effects past the trained task. This also extends to the more recent attempts at using video games to improve cognitive abilities, bringing into question if they have any true effects on cognitive functioning at all. Despite this, video game training studies are slowly beginning to accumulate and provide evidence of replicable improvements. Our study aimed to train non-video game playing individuals in the real-time strategy video game StarCraft II in order to observe any subsequent changes to perceptual, attentional, and executive functioning. Thirty hours of StarCraft II training resulted in improvements to perceptual and attentional abilities, but not executive functioning. This pattern of results is in line with previous research on the more frequently investigated “action” video games. By splitting the StarCraft II training group into two conditions of “fixed” and “variable” training, we were also able to demonstrate that manipulating the video game environment produces measurable differences in the amount of cognitive improvement. Lastly, by extracting in-game behavior features from recordings of each participant’s gameplay, we were able to show a direct correlation between in-game behavior change and cognitive performance change after training. These findings highlight and support the growing trend of more finely detailed and methodologically rigorous approaches to studying the relationship between video games and cognitive functioning.

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Impact of Games on the Performance and Engagement of Employees of the IT Industry

“…Restoring energy levels require recovering and replenishing the depleted resources which can be done by a) psychologically separating oneself from work and totally alienating from negative feelings generated by the work b) Relaxing oneself by soothing down one's physiological and psychological systems c) gaining expertise by performing challenging tasks thereby enhancing one's skills and competencies d) enjoying some leisure time for mental well-being (Dobrowolski et al, 2021;Attrill-Smith et al, 2019).…”

International Journal of Electronics and Telecommunications

“…Virtual worlds created by game developers became the arena for a competition that pushes the limits of human cognitive capabilities where only those who that adapt can improve their gameplay [5]. Training equipment is becoming more sophisticated with the Internet of Things (IoT) and A. Białecki is with Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland (e-mail: andrzej.bialecki94@gmail.com).…”