Psychology of Popular Media Culture Cognitive Abilities of Action Video Game and Role- Playing Video Game Players: Data From a Massive Open Online Course Gillian Dale, Florian Kattner, Daphne Bavelier, and C. Shawn Green Online First Publication, May 2, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000237 CITATION Dale, G., Kattner, F., Bavelier, D., & Green, C. S. (2019, May 2). Cognitive Abilities of Action Video Game and Role-Playing Video Game Players: Data From a Massive Open Online Course. Psychology of Popular Media Culture. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000237 Psychology of Popular Media Culture © 2019 American Psychological Association 2019, Vol. 2, No. 999, 000 2160-4134/19/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000237 Cognitive Abilities of Action Video Game and Role-Playing Video Game Players: Data From a Massive Open Online Course Gillian Dale Florian Kattner University of Wisconsin-Madison University of Wisconsin-Madison and Technische Universität Darmstadt Daphne Bavelier C. Shawn Green University of Geneva University of Wisconsin-Madison Numerous studies have demonstrated that regularly playing action video games (AVGPs) is associated with increased cognitive performance. Individuals who play role-playing video games (RPGs) have usually been excluded from these studies. This is because RPGs traditionally contained no action components and were thus not expected to influence cognitive performance. However, modern RPGs increasingly include numerous action-like components. We therefore examined whether current RPG players (RPGPs) perform similar to action video game players (AVGPs) or nonvideo game players (NVGPs) on two cognitive tasks. Self-identified AVGPs (N ϭ 76), NVGPs (N ϭ 77), and RPGPs (N ϭ 23) completed two online cognitive tasks: A useful field of view (UFOV) task and a multiple-object tracking task (MOT). The UFOV task measures the ability to deploy visuospatial attention over a large field of view while dividing one’s attention between a central and a peripheral task. The MOT task measures the ability to use attentional control to dynamically refresh information in working memory. RPGPs performed similar to AVGPs and better than NVGPs on both tasks. However, patterns of covariation (e.g., gender and age) presented obstacles to interpretation in some cases. Our study is the first to demonstrate that RPGPs show similar cognitive performance to AVGPs. These findings suggest that regularly playing modern RPGs may enhance visuospatial abilities. However, because the current study was purely cross-sectional, intervention studies will be needed to assess causation. We discuss the implications of this finding, as well as considerations for how gamers are classified going forward. Public Policy Relevance Statement We investigate whether individuals who play action video games that are mostly first- or third-person shooter games, as well as individuals who play action role-playing games, differ in their cognitive abilities as compared with nonvideo game players. We demonstrate that both action and role-playing gamers outperform nongamers on two attentionally demanding tasks and perform similarly to each other, suggesting that games other than those traditionally placed in the “action” genre may be beneficial for cognitive performance. Keywords: action video games, real-time strategy video games, role-playing video games, useful field of view, multiple object tracking This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual userThe and is not to be disseminated broadly. vast majority of commercial video games, from the very characteristics of many video games made them potentially pow- earliest examples of the medium, have primarily been designed erful tools to produce meaningful changes in perceptual, atten- with entertainment-based goals in mind—that is, to be fun and tional, and/or motor functions. Seminal work by Griffith and enjoyable to play. However, psychologists quickly realized that the colleagues in the early 1980s first put forth the argument that video Office of Naval Research Award—N000141712049 to C. Shawn Green. Gillian Dale, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Mad- Daphne Bavelier is a Scientific Advisor and owns founder shares for Akili ison; Florian Kattner, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin- Interactive Inc. Madison, and Department of Psychology, Technische Universität Darm- Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Gil- stadt; Daphne Bavelier, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva; lian Dale, who is now at Environmental Sustainability Research Centre, C. Shawn Green, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin- Brock University, 1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way, St. Catharines, ON, Madison. Canada L2S 3A1. E-mail: [email protected] 1 2 DALE, KATTNER, BAVELIER, AND GREEN games are more than simply mindless entertainment (Griffith, through the character’s eyes; third-person shooter ϭ looking at the Voloschin, Gibb, & Bailey, 1983). Instead, it was hypothesized back and/or top of the character). that certain features inherent to video games could make them Given the demanding nature of these games, Green and Bavelier excellent activities for developing both visuomotor and cognitive (2003) hypothesized that regular players of action games would skills. This same theme was continued in the 1990s by Greenfield show enhanced performance in certain perceptual and cognitive and colleagues, as well as a host of other labs. Over this period a functions as compared with individuals who did not regularly play great deal of empirical evidence accrued showing the capacity of games from the action genre (i.e., that there would be a video games to alter functions as varied as divided attention, correlational/cross-sectional effect of action game experience). mental rotation, speed of processing, hand–eye coordination, and Furthermore, they proposed that specifically training individuals spatial attention (Dorval & Pépin, 1986; Gagnon, 1985; Green- who did not normally play video games by having them play field, Brannon, & Lohr, 1994; Greenfield, DeWinstanley, Kilpat- action games for many hours over the course of several weeks rick, & Kaye, 1994; Okagaki & Frensch, 1994; Subrahmanyam & would result in increased performance as compared with individ- Greenfield, 1994). uals who were trained for the same period of time on a nonaction Notably, the abovementioned work tended to either examine the video game. In other words, it was hypothesized that a causal link impact of specific individual games (i.e., to look at the effects of could be drawn between the act of playing action video games and training on one specific game) or else consider all games together augmented perceptual/attention/cognitive performance. Consistent (i.e., to use the total amount of video gaming as the measure of with these hypotheses, Green and Bavelier (2003) demonstrated interest). However, as the video game industry developed and that action video game players (AVGPs) performed better than grew through the late 1990s, a number of reasonably distinct video nonvideo game players (NVGPs) on the useful field of view game genres, or categories, emerged. Games belonging to a given (UFOV) task, the attentional blink task, and a visual enumeration genre were linked by a number of commonalities inherent in task. These tasks measure the deployment of visuospatial attention their gameplay. For instance, individual games belonging to the under divided attention, the temporal characteristics of attention turn-based strategy game (TBS) genre differed from one another in allocation, and short-term memory capacity, respectively (Green & myriad ways, but they nonetheless tended to share a number of Bavelier, 2003). The same basic effects were then found in a true experiment in which NVGP individuals trained on an action video critical features. In this case, those characteristics are given by the game showed significantly larger improvements in performance on name. TBS games are those that are focused on strategy. They the abovementioned tasks after training as compared with NVGP involve careful consideration/decision-making in a well-defined individuals trained on a nonaction video game (Green & Bavelier, tree-structure environment, where each decision opens up new 2003). Since then, researchers from many different groups world- possibilities for both the player and their opponents to consider. wide have observed results in the same direction utilizing both They are also turn based. In other words, players take turns making cross-sectional and true experiment designs on a variety of tasks moves, with each move being fully executed before the opposing including (but not limited to) multiple-object tracking (Boot, player(s) can make a move in response. Kramer, Simons, Fabiani, & Gratton, 2008; Green & Bavelier, The development of such genres allowed for a methodological 2006; Sungur & Boduroglu, 2012; Trick, Jaspers-Fayer, & Sethi, approach that lies between examining the impact of an individual 2005), visual search (Castel, Pratt, & Drummond, 2005; Hubert- game and considering all games together. Because games in a Wallander, Green, Sugarman, & Bavelier, 2011; Wu & Spence, genre, by definition, share a set of critical characteristics, research- 2013), oculomotor capture (Chisholm, Hickey, Theeuwes, & ers could examine the impact of specific genres of video games.