How Video Games Shape Visual Attention Skills
The Hidden Benefits of Gaming
Have you ever found yourself lost in the world of a video game, racing against time, slaying monsters, or engrossed in a strategic adventure? You’re not alone! With an average of 8.5 hours per week spent playing video games globally, gaming has become a popular form of entertainment. But have you ever wondered if playing video games could actually improve your attention? Today, let’s dive into a fascinating study recently published in Scientific Reports, exploring the impact of different video game genres on our visual attention.
Video games come in various flavors — action-packed adventures like Call of Duty or slower-paced puzzles like Tetris. Past research has extensively focused on action video games and their potential to boost specific visual skills. These fast-paced games have shown promise in improving visual functions, influencing tasks such as useful field of view, multi-object tracking, and attentional blink.
But what about other game genres like MOBA, RPG, or sports simulators? Despite their different pace and demands, little research has explored their impact on visual attention. The recent study by Argilés, González-Fortuny, Fonts, and Sunyer-Grau aimed to bridge this gap. They sought to replicate earlier experiments on visual attention span (VA span) in action video games players and non-video game players, while also investigating VA span in players of other genres.
Ready, ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶e̶r̶ participant one
In the study, participants aged between 18 and 40, all university students, were recruited from two colleges in the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. The study included individuals who played video games for a minimum of 5 hours a week in one category and no more than 1 hour per week in other genres. Those playing less than 1 hour per week were considered non-video game players. To understand visual attention span (VA span), participants completed tasks involving recognizing sequences of letters. The global report task displayed a sequence of six letters for 200 milliseconds on a laptop screen. Participants then verbally reported the letters they identified. Additionally, reading tasks were conducted to assess the participants’ reading abilities using words and pseudowords in Catalan. Statistical analyses were performed to compare VA span performance among different game genre players and non-players. The study calculated the percentage of accurately identified consonants and analyzed performance differences using non-parametric tests.
The final boss: the results section
Participants, aged 18 to 36, were grouped based on their experience with various video game genres. Although the overall visual attention span remained consistent across these groups, intriguing findings surfaced regarding participants’ ability to identify the sixth letter in sequences. Players of action video games and sports simulators exhibited better performance, particularly in recognizing the sixth letter, compared to non-video game players.
An interesting observation was the left-side preference in video game players, indicating better performance in the right visual field. This implies distinct brain activations during visual attention tasks, particularly in those involved with sports simulation games.
The study affirmed the potential of sports simulation video games to improve visual attention abilities akin to fast-paced action games. These games demand players’ attention across the screen, necessitating focus on both central and peripheral details.
Although the time spent playing action games correlated with visual attention span performance, this association wasn’t evident in other genres like sports simulators and MOBA/RPG. This hints at differences in mechanisms supporting brain adaptability among video game genres, influencing visual and auditory domains.
TL, DR: If someone questions your time spent playing video games, let them know you’re actually working on improving your visual attention span!
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Source
Argilés, M., González-Fortuny, X., Fonts, E., & Sunyer-Grau, B. (2023). Global visual attention SPAN in different video game genres. Scientific reports, 13(1), 21882. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-49434-1
