Increasing Speed of Processing With Action Video Games

By Matthew W G Dye, Shawn C. Green, Daphne Bavelier. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2009

532 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In many everyday situations, speed is of the essence. However, fast decisions typically mean more mistakes. To this day, it remains unknown whether reaction times can be reduced with appropriate training, within one individual, across a range of tasks, and without compromising accuracy. Here we review evidence that the very act of playing action video games significantly reduces reaction times without sacrificing accuracy. Critically, this increase in speed is observed across various tasks beyond game situations. Video gaming may therefore provide an efficient training regimen to induce a general speeding of perceptual reaction times without decreases in accuracy of performance.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/75ef905fe03c105cf155feb3e1b678b4d314a13b

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In Cognitive Neuroscience

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Enhanced Implicit Sequence Learning in College‐age Video Game Players and Musicians (2012, methodology): “…with video games and music is associated with enhanced visual perception, attention, memory, multi‐sensory processing and processing speed (Boot et al., 2008; Brochard et al., 2004; Donohue et al., 2010; Dye et al., 2009a; Green & Bavelier, 2006; Rauscher et al., 1997; Schellenberg, 2004).”
Learning, attentional control and action video games (2012, methodology): “Using the ‘Test of Variables of Attention’, a computerized test often used in the screening of attention deﬁcit disorder, Dye et al. [61] found that gamers responded faster and made no more mistakes than non-gamers.”
Action video game training for cognitive enhancement (2015, background): “com show decreased reaction times as compared to non-gamers, but with equivalent levels of accuracy (and higher levels of accuracy in tasks that measure only percent correct — [31]).”
Removing brakes on adult brain plasticity: from molecular to behavioral interventions (2010, background): “Reward, and the drive to perform as many correct responses per unit of time (Dye et al., 2009a), is likely to engage dopamine and possibly opiates and other neuromodulators.”