ABSTRACT

One intervention that does appear to lead to more generalizable improvements in cognitive performance involves an experience that was not originally designed for practical ends video game training. Video games have consistently been shown to result in global transfer to a variety of perceptual and cognitive measures, from those that tap low-level visual abilities, all the way up to task switching and high-level decision making. Specific scientific investigations of the potential effects of video games began to take off in the early 1980s. A number of attentional processes are also influenced by action gaming. For instance, many studies have now shown clear enhancements in spatial selective attention. Although there are many tasks in the psychological literature that tap spatial selective attention, one common measure in the action video game literature is the useful field of view (UFOV) task. In the UFOV task, participants view a briefly presented display that contains both a central target and a peripheral target.