Abstract
In this study, we investigated visual short-term memory for coherent motion in action video game players (AVGPs), non-action video game players (NAVGPs), and non-gamers (control group: CONs). Participants performed a visual memory-masking paradigm previously used with macaque monkeys and humans. In particular, we tested whether video game players form a more robust visual short-term memory trace for coherent moving stimuli during the encoding phase, and whether such memory traces are less affected by an intervening masking stimulus presented 0.2 s after the offset of the to-be-remembered sample. The results showed that task performance of all groups was affected by the masking stimulus, but video game players were affected to a lesser extent than controls. Modelling of performance values and reaction times revealed that video game players have a lower guessing rate than CONs, and higher drift rates than CONs, indicative of more efficient perceptual decisions. These results suggest that video game players exhibit a more robust VSTM trace for moving objects and this trace is less prone to external interference.
Highlights
There is extensive behavioural evidence that playing action video games enhances a range of perceptual[1,2,3,4] and cognitive functions[5,6,7,8,9,10]
The results of the training in motion direction discrimination showed that action video game players (AVGPs), non-action video game players (NAVGPs) and
Bonferroni-Holm corrected Mann-Whitney post-hoc comparisons did not report a significant difference between AVGPs and NAVGPs (p = 0.254), between AVGPs and CONs (p = 0.123), and between NAVGPs and CONs (p = 0.16)
Summary
There is extensive behavioural evidence that playing action video games enhances a range of perceptual[1,2,3,4] and cognitive functions[5,6,7,8,9,10]. It has been demonstrated that training on action video games improves reading abilities in children with developmental dyslexia[11,12,13,14], this conclusion has been recently disputed[15] These beneficial effects on cognitive functions may depend on the fact that action video game players have to track, store in visual short-term memory and react to multiple auditory and visual stimuli, which are changing continuously over space and time[3,16]. The results showed that the mask mainly interfered with performance when displayed 200 ms after the offset of the sample interval, and when its direction, speed and spatial position matched that of the remembered sample (see Pasternak and Zaksas[33] for similar results on macaque monkeys) These results suggest that the short-term representation for global motion is selective for direction, speed and spatial position, being compromised by intervening directional stimuli presented immediately after the encoding phase[38]. To this end we defined a further group of video gamers who engage in non-action video game playing
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