Action video game play facilitates the development of better perceptual templates

Abstract

The field of perceptual learning has identified changes in perceptual templates as a powerful mechanism mediating the learning of statistical regularities in our environment. By measuring threshold-vs.-contrast curves using an orientation identification task under varying levels of external noise, the perceptual template model (PTM) allows one to disentangle various sources of signal-to-noise changes that can alter performance. We use the PTM approach to elucidate the mechanism that underlies the wide range of improvements noted after action video game play. We show that action video game players make use of improved perceptual templates compared with nonvideo game players, and we confirm a causal role for action video game play in inducing such improvements through a 50-h training study. Then, by adapting a recent neural model to this task, we demonstrate how such improved perceptual templates can arise from reweighting the connectivity between visual areas. Finally, we establish that action gamers do not enter the perceptual task with improved perceptual templates. Instead, although performance in action gamers is initially indistinguishable from that of nongamers, action gamers more rapidly learn the proper template as they experience the task. Taken together, our results establish for the first time to our knowledge the development of enhanced perceptual templates following action game play. Because such an improvement can facilitate the inference of the proper generative model for the task at hand, unlike perceptual learning that is quite specific, it thus elucidates a general learning mechanism that can account for the various behavioral benefits noted after action game play.

Keywords: action video games; external noise method; learning; perceptual templates; probabilistic inference.

Fig. 1.

AVGPs show improved performance in an orientation identification task. (A) An illustration of a typical trial. After a central fixation cross was presented, a Gabor signal frame appeared sandwiched between two external noise frames. Participants had to indicate the orientation of the Gabor signal, clockwise or counterclockwise from horizontal. (B) Signal contrast thresholds as a function of external noise contrast level (plotted in log-log units), at the two levels of performance, for AVGPs (n = 10) vs. NVGPs (n = 10). AVGPs showed overall lower signal contrast thresholds than NVGPs, indicating better performance in the task. The curves show the PTM fits and reveal a downward shift in the TvC curve from NVGPs to AVGPs, consistent with AVGPs’ developing a better perceptual template for the task. Error brackets are SEM.

Fig. 2.

Improved orientation identification performance as a result of action video game training (A) vs. control game training (B). Overall, action-trained participants (n = 12) showed larger posttraining improvements in orientation identification performance than control trainees (n = 14). Curves represent PTM fits and confirm improvements in external noise reduction and additive internal noise reduction consistent with the use of better perceptual templates after action game training.

Fig. 3.

Action video game-induced improvements in performance were retained several months after training. A subset of action group participants (n = 9) from the training study were brought back several months later and retested on the orientation identification task (post2). The curves represent PTM fits and confirm that action-trained participants continued to show improved perceptual templates several months after the end of training.

Fig. 4.

Neural model of the improvements in orientation identification performance, observed as a result of action video game experience. (A) Schematic of the neural architecture used to simulate performance in the orientation identification task. The model consists of two visual stages, which simulate the representation and transmission of orientation information across neural layers, followed by a decoding stage that simulates the observer’s decision about the target orientation. (B) Network TvC curves (solid and dashed lines) were obtained for the two performance levels used in the training study. Changing the feed-forward connections (M) between the visual stages of the network, in a manner that moved them closer to a matched filter for the stimulus, led to a decrease in the network signal contrast thresholds and a near-uniform downward shift in network TvC curves, as observed after action game play.

Fig. 5.

AVGPs show faster learning in an orientation identification task. (A) An illustration of a typical trial. After a central fixation cross was presented, a Gabor signal frame appeared in one of two peripheral locations and was sandwiched between two external noise frames. Participants had to indicate the orientation of the Gabor signal, clockwise or counterclockwise from an implicit reference angle (−35° or 55°). Reference angles and locations of stimuli (northeast/southwest quadrants or northwest/southeast quadrants; see inset) were counterbalanced across participants and matched between groups. (B) Signal contrast thresholds as a function of learning sessions for AVGPs (n = 10) vs. NVGPs (n = 10). Both groups showed comparable performance at the outset of the task but as learning proceeded the two groups’ performance gradually diverged, with AVGPs eventually showing lower signal contrast thresholds overall than NVGPs, indicating better performance by the end of the task. The curves show the elaborated power function fits to the data and reveal a markedly faster learning rate for the AVGPs in comparison with the NVGPs, consistent with AVGPs’ more rapidly developing a better perceptual template for the task at hand. Error brackets are SEM.