Playing a First-person Shooter Video Game Induces Neuroplastic Change: A Critical Evaluation

April 28, 2012 · Filed under Uncategorized

Psychologists have published research which has found that playing video games in which the player engages in shooting characters in a first person perspective improves their performance on a visual attention task (Wu, Cheng, Feng, D’Angelo, Alain & Spence, 2012). The improvement is due to increased inhibition of distractors; the brain is more able to ignore extraneous stimuli.

The Experiment:

• Twenty-five participants who hadn’t played a video game in the last four years spent a cumulative 10 hours on a game; playing in either one or two hour sessions.
• 16 participants played the first person shooting game whilst the remaining 9 were assigned to the control condition and played a 3D puzzle game.
• To measure their attention, participants had their brain waves recorded whilst trying to detect a target object among other distractions, before and after playing their game.

The Results:       

• Participants who played the first person shooter game and showed the greatest improvement on the attention task showed significant changes in their brain waves.
• The changes present in electrical activity were consistent with those which enhance visual attention and suppress distracting information.
• This improvement was thought to be due to increased inhibition of distractors.
• Those who did not show great improvement on the attention task and participants in the control group showed no significant changes in their brain waves.

A Critical Evaluation:

• Methodology:
  • The experiment lacked ecological validity; the attention task and the video game were presented on either computer or television screens which have a narrow field of vision in comparison with the real world.
  • The brain scans took place before and after playing which provided strong data and basis for comparison. However if brain waves had been monitored during play, results could have been more specific and therefore potential implications wider. If the research had highlighted the exact stimuli which produced the change, or the time needed to improve visual attention and inhibit distractors an intervention or procedure could be devised and used for tasks such as driving which would benefit from such improvements.
  • This studied only examined the effects of video games played for a relatively short amount of time; members on a forum for gamers (forums.gametrailers, 2011) said that they played for anywhere between 3-12 hours at a time. Therefore this study is not representative of the cognitive activity of regular gamers. Therefore this research can be argued to lack population validity as the results cannot be generalised to long term videogame players who engage in longer sessions; the target population.
    

• Supporting Evidence:
  • Research by Greenfield, DeWinstanley, Kilpatrick and Kaye (1994) found that playing videogames does facilitate attention and decrease response times to an expected stimulus. However when a stimulus is not expected the increased inhibition of distractors caused by video games increased response times.
  • Research by Goldstein, Cajko, Oosterbroek, Michielsen, Van Houten, Salverda and Femke (1997) found that elderly people who played videogames for five hours per week for five weeks showed significantly improved reaction times. This research supports the findings of Wu et al (2012) and indicates a positive potential implication for videogames as training method to increase cognitive awareness.

• Contradictory Evidence:
  • Anderson (2004) found that playing violent video games significantly increases aggressive behaviour, aggressive cognitions and aggressive mood, they were also found to increase cardiovascular arousal. This research highlights ethical considerations; are the benefits of improved visual attention worth the cost of potential harm not only to participants but to the general population, if encouraged to play such games as used in this experiment?
  • Anderson and Dill (2000) found that such effects on behaviour were present both short term (immediately after playing a violent videogame) and lasted long term.

References:

Anderson (2004)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140197103000976

forums.gametrailers (2011)

http://forums.gametrailers.com/thread/how-long-are-your-gaming-sessi/1208077

Greenfield et al (1994)

http://ac.els-cdn.com/0193397394900086/1-s2.0-0193397394900086-main.pdf?_tid=cd9e21e4697bda70245704a31c348f5d&acdnat=1335629370_cdc117e6452c032d8459b1b014e06c59

Goldstein et al (1997)

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/sbp/sbp/1997/00000025/00000004/art00006

Wu et al (2012)

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/jocn_a_00192