Video Games and Visuo-Spatial Problem Solving Ability
Richard, Michael Marr
2013
- In 2000, Hodgson and his colleagues used eye-tracking measures to determine patterns in how participants solved visual puzzles. When analyzing the results of this study, Hodgson et al. found a reliable pattern in attention allocation for users, which predicted their efficiency in solving the puzzle. The study used the eye-gaze data to classify participants into efficient planners and error makers ... read morebased on their allocation of attention. Independent of this problem solving research, studies have investigated the effects of video game play on cognitive performance. Research has demonstrated that playing video games decreases reaction time in many situations (Dye 2009), decreases the time needed for spatial visualization (Okagaki & Frensch 1994), and improves spatial attention allocation (Chisholm et al. 2010). The project presented here bridges these two lines of research. We hypothesized that expert video game players will represent and solve visuo-spatial problems more efficiently than novice video game players. Specifically we hypothesized that this would occur on account of either: augmented visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) capacity; or enhanced perceptual/attentional mechanism. Our results demonstrated that video game players did indeed perform better than non-game players. These results were best accounted for by an augmentation of VSWM, rather than enhancements perceptual or attentive processes.read less
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- 70795m15d
- Component ID:
- tufts:UA005.006.162.00001
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