Abstract
Playing certain types of video games for a long time can improve a wide range of mental processes, from visual acuity to cognitive control. Frequent gamers have also displayed generalized improvements in perceptual learning. In the Texture Discrimination Task (TDT), a widely used perceptual learning paradigm, participants report the orientation of a target embedded in a field of lines and demonstrate robust over-night improvement. However, changing the orientation of the background lines midway through TDT training interferes with overnight improvements in overall performance on TDT. Interestingly, prior research has suggested that this effect will not occur if a one-hour break is allowed in between the changes. These results have suggested that after training is over, it may take some time for learning to become stabilized and resilient against interference. Here, we tested whether frequent gamers have faster stabilization of perceptual learning compared to non-gamers and examined the effect of daily video game playing on interference of training of TDT with one background orientation on perceptual learning of TDT with a different background orientation. As a result, we found that non-gamers showed overnight performance improvement only on one background orientation, replicating previous results with the interference in TDT. In contrast, frequent gamers demonstrated overnight improvements in performance with both background orientations, suggesting that they are better able to overcome interference in perceptual learning. This resistance to interference suggests that video game playing not only enhances the amplitude and speed of perceptual learning but also leads to faster and/or more robust stabilization of perceptual learning.
Highlights
Every day, more of our society is exposed to rapid video stimulation and virtual environments, ranging from television and movies to interactive games requiring active and vigilant participation
We tested whether frequent gamers have faster stabilization of perceptual learning compared to non-gamers and examined the effect of daily video game playing on interference of training of Texture Discrimination Task (TDT) with one background orientation on perceptual learning of TDT with a different background orientation
We found that non-gamers showed overnight performance improvement only on one background orientation, replicating previous results with the interference in TDT
Summary
More of our society is exposed to rapid video stimulation and virtual environments, ranging from television and movies to interactive games requiring active and vigilant participation. Subjects who frequently played action video games were proficient in processing multiple distractors, quickly identifying visual targets, stretching visual attention over a wide eccentricity range, and resisting the “attentional blink” effect [1] These findings suggest that frequent gamers have enhanced attentional resources unlike their non-gamer counterparts. If frequent gamers have an enhanced capacity and speed in lower visual processing accompanied with more attentional resources, they may show little interference in learning two similar tasks within a short time window To address this question, we conducted an interference paradigm that we have developed earlier [17] in a Texture Discrimination Task (TDT) [17,22]. We have found that such an interference effect was not observed with a frequent gamer when trainings of two types of perceptual learning were conducted with no time interval between them These results were not seen in a non-gaming population. The present results suggest that video game playing enhances the capacity and speed of perceptual learning and leads to faster and/or more robust stabilization of perceptual learning
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