ABSTRACT

Over the past 15 years, there has been increasing scientific interest in the impact of long-term video game play on cognitive function. This literature has revealed that playing one subtype of video game in particular—dubbed action video games—produces enhancements in a wide variety of cognitive skills. The observed benefits of playing action video games have spanned the full gamut of cognition, from improvements in low-level visual functions (e.g., contrast sensitivity) to higher-level executive functions (e.g., task-switching, multi-tasking, and dual-tasking). Critically, these benefits have not been seen to arise from playing any type of video games (e.g., simulation games). Like all fields that assess the impact of ever-changing cultural phenomena though, research methods must constantly adapt to keep pace with the current state of affairs. This is particularly true in this domain, where changes in the types of commercial games that exist, and in the history and patterns of game playing in the population of game players, increasingly necessitate new approaches to assessing the impact of games on cognition.