Action video gaming and cognitive control: playing first person shooter games is associated with improvement in working memory but not action inhibition

Psychological Research (2013) 77:234239 DOI 10.1007/s00426-012-0415-2

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Action video gaming and cognitive control: playing Wrst person shooter games is associated with improvement in working memory but not action inhibition

Lorenza S. Colzato Wery P. M. van den Wildenberg Sharon Zmigrod Bernhard Hommel

Received: 28 November 2011 / Accepted: 10 January 2012 / Published online: 22 January 2012 Springer-Verlag 2012

Abstract The interest in the inXuence of videogame experience in our daily life is constantly growing. First Person Shooter (FPS) games require players to develop a

Xexible mindset to rapidly react and monitor fast moving visual and auditory stimuli, and to inhibit erroneous actions. This study investigated whether and to which degree experience with such videogames generalizes to other cognitive control tasks. Experienced video game players (VGPs) and individuals with little to no videogame experience (NVGPs) performed on a N-back task and a stop-signal paradigm that provide a relatively well-established diagnostic measure of the monitoring and updating of working memory (WM) and response inhibition (an index of behavioral impulsivity), respectively. VGPs were faster and more accurate in the monitoring and updating of WM than NVGPs, which were faster in reacting to go signals, but showed comparable stopping performance. Our

Wndings support the idea that playing FPS games is associated with enhanced Xexible updating of task-relevant information without aVecting impulsivity.

Introduction

The video game industry has seen a rapid growth over the recent years, as has the interest in the inXuence of video-game experience on peoples daily life. Game developers and designers keep reinventing the world of videogames by introducing new types of game play and new methods to enhance the gaming experience. Violent video games have often been a hot topic of debate in our society, mainly surrounding the topic of whether aggressive content in such games stimulates aggressive behavior in the players.

Recently, there has been an increasing interest in the possible cognitive beneWts that playing video games may have on players. Green and Bavelier (2003) conducted a series of experiments on the eVects of video game playing on visual attention comparing video game players (VGPs) and non-video game players (NVGPs) on a Xanker compatibility task, an enumeration task, and a useful Weld of view task. The results suggested that video game playing experience...