The Impact of Commercial Video Game Play on Perceptual Abilities

Abstract

A growing body of literature has investigated the effects of playing commercial video games on perceptual and cognitive abilities. One key takeaway from this literature has been that not all entertainment video games are created equal with respect to their impact on human abilities. The majority of the research to-date has contrasted the perceptual and cognitive effects of playing first- or third-person shooter games (together dubbed “action video games”) against the effects of playing other game types [2]. Here I will discuss two evolving shifts in this research domain. The first is the suggestion that the enhanced performance on perceptual tasks seen to arise as a function of action video game experience may have its roots in enhancements in certain more cognitive abilities (e.g., attention). The second relates to dramatic changes in the video game industry [3]. Specifically, when the research on the impact of commercial video games began in the late 1990s, action video games placed load upon the perceptual, attentional, and cognitive systems in a manner not seen in other video games. Today though, first- and third-person shooters are no longer unique in the extent to which they load upon perceptual and cognitive abilities. Instead, a host of other game types have emerged that appear to place similar degrees of load upon these systems. This thus provides an opportunity to further examine the link between sustained load on perceptual/cognitive functions and changes in those functions.