Key components of action video games and their neural underpinnings
Abstract
The field of perceptual and cognitive training has long struggled with what is known as the ~curse of specificity.~ In essence, although humans are excellent at learning to perform new tasks, this learning rarely generalizes to new tasks or circumstances. This is a significant obstacle if the goal of training is to make real world impact (e.g. the ability to detect one small item on a laboratory computer is of little value to a warfighter if they are not then subsequently better able to detect enemies out in the world). Over the past few decades though, researchers have found training tasks that overcome the curse of specificity to produce broad enhancements in perceptual, attentional, and cognitive ability. One such example has involved training on what are known as ~action~ video games. Playing these games has been shown to enhance a wide variety of abilities from low-level vision to high-level decision-making. Unfortunately though, because these games are highly complex, it is difficult to know which ~ingredients~ present in these games are responsible for promoting the broad enhancements that are observed. Furthermore, the majority of the work to date has been purely behavior in nature, meaning that the neural changes that underlie these behavioral outcomes are also unknown.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 04, 2017
- Source ID
- N000141712049
Entities
People
- Christopher M. Green
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Wisconsin System