Enhanced visual short-term memory in action video game players

Abstract

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is critical for acquiring visual knowledge and shows marked individual variability. Previous work has illustrated a VSTM advantage among action video game players (Boot et al. Acta Psychologica 129:387-398, 2008). A growing body of literature has suggested that action video game playing can bolster visual cognitive abilities in a domain-general manner, including abilities related to visual attention and the speed of processing, providing some potential bases for this VSTM advantage. In the present study, we investigated the VSTM advantage among video game players and assessed whether enhanced processing speed can account for this advantage. Experiment 1, using simple colored stimuli, revealed that action video game players demonstrate a similar VSTM advantage over nongamers, regardless of whether they are given limited or ample time to encode items into memory. Experiment 2, using complex shapes as the stimuli to increase the processing demands of the task, replicated this VSTM advantage, irrespective of encoding duration. These findings are inconsistent with a speed-of-processing account of this advantage. An alternative, attentional account, grounded in the existing literature on the visuocognitive consequences of video game play, is discussed.

Gaming is related to enhanced working memory performance and task-related cortical activity

“…In sum, the current study replicates previous findings linking gaming to improved working memory functioning (e.g., Blacker & Curby, 2013;Boot et al, 2008;McDermott et al, 2014;Sungur & Boduroglu, 2012), and extends these findings to apply not only to adults but also to adolescents, and to participants representing a much broader spectrum of gaming experience than just expert gamers and novices. Furthermore, the current study provides novel insight into the neural basis of working memory enhancements in gamers by demonstrating that the pattern of prefrontal recruitment is significantly altered when working memory load is increased in participants with more gaming experience.…”

“…Similar results have been obtained using other working memory paradigms (Boot et al, 2008), and with both stationary and dynamic stimuli (Sungur & Boduroglu, 2012). In addition, the advantage of gaming on working memory performance seems to hold irrespective of the complexity of the used stimuli or the time allotted to memory encoding (Blacker & Curby, 2013). Taken together, these results suggest that gaming is linked to an improved ability to maintain and flexibly update information in working memory.…”

The Changing Face of Video Games and Video Gamers: Future Directions in the Scientific Study of Video Game Play and Cognitive Performance

“…In the more than 10 years that have passed since this study, a vast amount of work has been published on the potential use of action video games to enhance various processes such as perception (Donohue et al 2010;Dye et al 2009;Li et al 2010b), attention (e.g., Dye et al 2009;Dye and Bavelier 2010;Green and Bavelier 2003HubertWallander et al 2011;Li et al 2010a, b;Wu and Spence 2013;Wu et al 2012), and higher-level cognition including task switching (Chiappe et al 2013;Colzato et al 2010;Green et al 2012;Strobach et al 2012), multi-tasking (Strobach et al 2012), and some aspects of short-term/working memory (Blacker and Curby 2013;Blacker et al 2014;Colzato et al 2013;McDermott et al 2014;Sungur and Boduroglu 2012;Wilms et al 2013). Indeed, the literature on the relationship between video game play and cognitive and perceptual performance is now sufficiently large enough to allow for metaanalyses to be conducted (Bediou et al under review;Powers et al 2013).…”

Action video game training for cognitive enhancement

“…This includes improvements in visual sensitivity [24,29], basic perimetry [20], perceptual decision making [30], speed of processing [31,32], perceptual simultaneity and temporal order judgments [21], in the capacity to select task relevant information across space [23,33 ,34-36,37 ,38] and time [23,33 ,39,40], to overcome attentional capture [41,42] and utilize cognitive control [25], in the ability to track multiple moving objects [23,43,44], to mentally rotate complex shapes [36], to remember visually presented information [45,46], and to either rapidly switch between tasks [47 , [48][49][50][51][52] or to perform multiple tasks concurrently [51,53] (although see [54][55][56][57] for failures to find such effects). The available research also strongly contradicts the popular conception of the 'triggerhappy' video game player who is willing to trade reductions in accuracy for increased speed.…”