Action Video Gaming and Cognitive Control: Playing First Person Shooter Games Is Associated with Improved Action Cascading but Not Inhibition

Abstract

There is a constantly growing interest in developing efficient methods to enhance cognitive functioning and/or to ameliorate cognitive deficits. One particular line of research focuses on the possibly cognitive enhancing effects that action video game (AVG) playing may have on game players. Interestingly, AVGs, especially first person shooter games, require gamers to develop different action control strategies to rapidly react to fast moving visual and auditory stimuli, and to flexibly adapt their behaviour to the ever-changing context. This study investigated whether and to what extent experience with such videogames is associated with enhanced performance on cognitive control tasks that require similar abilities. Experienced action videogame-players (AVGPs) and individuals with little to no videogame experience (NVGPs) performed a stop-change paradigm that provides a relatively well-established diagnostic measure of action cascading and response inhibition. Replicating previous findings, AVGPs showed higher efficiency in response execution, but not improved response inhibition (i.e. inhibitory control), as compared to NVGPs. More importantly, compared to NVGPs, AVGPs showed enhanced action cascading processes when an interruption (stop) and a change towards an alternative response were required simultaneously, as well as when such a change had to occur after the completion of the stop process. Our findings suggest that playing AVGs is associated with enhanced action cascading and multi-component behaviour without affecting inhibitory control.

Fig 1. Schematic illustration of the stop-change paradigm.

Circles indicate the four possible target locations, while the lines indicate the three possible reference lines. The red rectangle represents the STOP signal, the presentation of which (SSD) varied according to a staircase procedure (see text, for further details). The speaker icon represents the auditory CHANGE signal, which could be high (1300 Hz), medium (900 Hz) or low (500 Hz) in pitch. The pitch of the CHANGE signal indicates the new reference line to be used to judge the location (above vs. below) of the target stimulus (i.e., the white circle). The figure illustrates the sequence of the events (from left to right) for the GO condition (above panel) and for the STOP-CHANGE conditions (below panel). Each trial starts with the presentation of the four empty circles separated by three lines, with one of the circles becoming white after 250 ms. When no STOP signal is presented (i.e., GO condition–above panel), the presentation of the white circle (i.e., GO stimulus) requires participants to execute a right-handed response to judge its position with respect to the middle reference line. GO trials end after the response to the GO stimulus. Reaction times (RTs) on GO trials reflect the efficiency of response execution. When the STOP signal is presented (i.e., SC condition–below panel), participants are instructed to withdraw their right-handed response to the GO stimulus and to execute a left-handed response instead, judging the position of the white circle with respect to the new reference line (higher, middle, lower), as indicated by the pitch of the CHANGE signal (high, medium, low). The interval between the onset of the STOP and CHANGE stimuli (i.e., stop-change delay; SCD) was set to either 0 or 300 ms to create the SCD0 and SCD300 conditions. SC trials end after the response to the CHANGE stimulus. The time required to stop a planned/ongoing response (i.e., stop-signal reaction times, SSRTs) reflects inhibitory control efficiency. Responses on SC trials requires to inhibit a planned, ongoing response and to rapidly execute a different response. Successful performance on these trials relies on the ability to activate different task goals, and to cascade and prioritize different actions [53]. Therefore, RTs on these trials are indicative of the efficiency of action cascading, with shorter RTs indicating more efficient action cascading. ITI: intertrial interval; SSD: stop-signal delay; SCD: stop-change delay.