Citation

Dye MW, Green CS, Bavelier D. Neuropsychologia 2009; 47(8-9): 1780-1789.

Affiliation

Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Center for Visual Science, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, United States. mdye@bcs.rochester.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.02.002

PMID

19428410

PMCID

PMC2680769

Abstract

Previous research suggests that action video game play improves attentional resources, allowing gamers to better allocate their attention across both space and time. In order to further characterize the plastic changes resulting from playing these video games, we administered the Attentional Network Test (ANT) to action game players and non-playing controls aged between 7 and 22 years. By employing a mixture of cues and flankers, the ANT provides measures of how well attention is allocated to targets as a function of alerting and orienting cues, and to what extent observers are able to filter out the influence of task irrelevant information flanking those targets. The data suggest that action video game players of all ages have enhanced attentional skills that allow them to make faster correct responses to targets, and leaves additional processing resources that spill over to process distractors flanking the targets.

Language: en