Auditory cognition and perception of action video game players

Hannah J Stewart,Audrey Perdew,Jasmin L Martinez,David R Moore,C Shawn Green

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-71235-z

Abstract

A training method to improve speech hearing in noise has proven elusive, with most methods failing to transfer to untrained tasks. One common approach to identify potentially viable training paradigms is to make use of cross-sectional designs. For instance, the consistent finding that people who chose to avidly engage with action video games as part of their normal life also show enhanced performance on non-game visual tasks has been used as a foundation to test the causal impact of such game play via true experiments (e.g., in more translational designs). However, little work has examined the association between action video game play and untrained auditory tasks, which would speak to the possible utility of using such games to improve speech hearing in noise. To examine this possibility, 80 participants with mixed action video game experience were tested on a visual reaction time task that has reliably shown superior performance in action video game players (AVGPs) compared to non-players (≤ 5 h/week across game categories) and multi-genre video game players (> 5 h/week across game categories). Auditory cognition and perception were tested using auditory reaction time and two speech-in-noise tasks. Performance of AVGPs on the visual task replicated previous positive findings. However, no significant benefit of action video game play was found on the auditory tasks. We suggest that, while AVGPs interact meaningfully with a rich visual environment during play, they may not interact with the games’ auditory environment. These results suggest that far transfer learning during action video game play is modality-specific and that an acoustically relevant auditory environment may be needed to improve auditory probabilistic thinking.

Highlights

A training method to improve speech hearing in noise has proven elusive, with most methods failing to transfer to untrained tasks
As an example of this latter situation, in one RCT5, training on a speech discrimination task[6] produced robust on-task learning and some limited far transfer to auditory and visual divided attention and working memory tasks, but no generalized benefits for speech perception in noise. In contrast to these often null or variable results, there has been a series of positive results demonstrating that training on one particular type of video game—dubbed action video games—produces enhanced, far transfer of visual cognition and visual perception abilities compared to non-players[7,8]
Given the extreme cost and difficulty of running full intervention studies, cross-sectional designs are often utilized by researchers to determine whether a full scale intervention is warranted

Summary

Introduction

A training method to improve speech hearing in noise has proven elusive, with most methods failing to transfer to untrained tasks. As an example of this latter situation, in one RCT5, training on a speech (phoneme) discrimination task[6] produced robust on-task learning and some limited far transfer to auditory and visual divided attention and working memory tasks, but no generalized benefits for speech perception in noise In contrast to these often null or variable results, there has been a series of positive results demonstrating that training on one particular type of video game—dubbed action video games—produces enhanced, far transfer of visual cognition and visual perception abilities compared to non-players[7,8]. Much of the work in the field has been cross-sectional in nature e.g.,13–15 In such designs, the perceptual or cognitive skills of individuals who choose to play a great deal of action video games as part of their daily life (referred to as ‘action video game players’ or AVGPs) are contrasted against those of individuals who do not play such games (here labeled as ‘non-players’ or NPs). The stimuli are far removed from popular ‘first person shooter’ action video games, the results show that do AVGPs outperform NPs on this task[18,19,20,21], but that deliberate action video game training produces similar benefits, indicating that the relationship is causal[10]

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion