DOOM'd to Switch: Superior Cognitive Flexibility in Players of First Person Shooter Games
2Amsterdam Center for the Study of Adaptive Control in Brain and Behavior (Acacia), Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
The interest in the influence of videogame experience on our daily life is constantly growing. “First Person Shooter” (FPS) games require players to develop a flexible mindset to rapidly react to fast moving visual and auditory stimuli, and to switch back and forth between different subtasks. This study investigated whether and to which degree experience with such videogames generalizes to other cognitive-control tasks. Video-game players (VGPs) and individuals with little to no videogame experience (NVGPs) performed on a task switching paradigm that provides a relatively well-established diagnostic measure of cognitive flexibility. As predicted, VGPs showed smaller switching costs (i.e., greater cognitive flexibility) than NVGPs. Our findings support the idea that playing FPS games promotes cognitive flexibility.
In the last decade the gaming industry has seen a rapid growth, as did the number of their customers. Exciting new technologies are available and the variety of games available is enormous, so that players can be found at any age and socio-economical background. This has raised the interest of scientists, who often focus on the influence of videogame experience on our daily behavior, especially with regard to particularly violent games. Politicians and main-stream media are mostly concerned about (possible, but not yet scientifically confirmed) extreme social and behavioral effects, such as violence or addiction, guided by the famous tragic cases in high-school amok run teenagers in the USA and, recently, also in Germany, who were used to play “First Person Shooter” games.
