Playing video games does not make for better visual attention skills

Abstract

The current study aimed to replicate and extend the findings of Green and Bavelier (2003) which showed video game players (VGPs) to have superior temporal attention, spatial distribution of attention and enhanced attentional capacity compared to non-video game players (NVGPs). Sixty-five males aged 17 to 25 years completed an Attentional Blink task (temporal attention), a Useful Field of View task (spatial distribution of attention), an Inattentional Blindness task (attentional capacity) and a Repetition Blindness task (attentional processing ability). It was expected that VGPs due to their superior attentional skills would perform better on all tasks than the NVGPs. Results for all tasks replicated the standard effects. VGPs were found to perform better than NVGPs in the Attentional Blink task only at the shortest target interval. There were no other group differences for any task suggesting a limited role for video game playing in the modification of visual attention.