Addressing the association between action video game playing experience and visual search in naturalistic multisensory scenes

Abstract

Includes supplementary materials for the online appendix.

Prior studies investigating the effects of routine action video game play have demonstrated improve-ments in a variety of cognitive processes, including improvements in attentional tasks. However, there is little evidence indicating that the cognitive benefits of playing action video games generalize from simplified unisensory stimuli to multisensory scenes — a fundamental characteristic of natural, everyday life environments. The present study addressed if video game experience has an impact on crossmodal congruency effects when searching through such multisensory scenes. We compared the performance of action video game players (AVGPs) and non-video game players (NVGPs) on a visual search task for objects embedded in video clips of realistic scenes. We conducted two identical online experiments with gender-balanced samples, for a total of N = 130. Overall, the data replicated previous findings reporting search benefits when visual targets were accompanied by semantically congruent auditory events, compared to neutral or incongruent ones. However, according to the results, AVGPs did not consistently outperform NVGPs in the overall search task, nor did they use multisensory cues more efficiently than NVGPs. Exploratory analyses with self-reported gender as a variable revealed a potential difference in response strategy between experienced male and female AVGPs when dealing with crossmodal cues. These findings suggest that the generalization of the advantage of AVG experience to realistic, crossmodal situations should be made with caution and considering gender-related issues.

Salvador Soto-Faraco has been funded by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Ref: PID2022-137277NB-I00 AEI/FEDER), and AGAUR Generalitat de Catalunya (2021 SGR 00911). This project has been co-funded for 50% by the European Regional Development Fund under the framework of the ERFD Operative Programme for Catalunya 2014-2020, with a grant of €1.527.637,88. This article was published with financial support from the University of Hildesheim Foundation.