Effects of Cognitive Training on Individual Differences in Attention

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Selective attention is responsible for detecting, localizing and identifying a target while neglecting distractors [1],[2]. A superior capacity in selective attention contributes to good performance in tasks that require monitoring the environment and searching for a target [2],[3],[4]. Since it is our goal to optimize work efficiency, understanding individual differences in attentional capacity and whether they are mutable is important. Our first experiment demonstrates the existence of systematic individual differences in selective attention. More remarkably, our second experiment shows that appropriate cognitive training using an action video game can alter selective attentional capacity. Furthermore, individuals with the poorest initial scores gain most from the training. We show that these gains cannot be attributed to regression effects alone. Thus we conclude that individual differences in attentional capacity can be reduced or even eliminated by training.