3 ms·

> The same applies to video game training Eh? I read the introduction/summary of the linked article, it appears to say not that there's a failure to transfer,

> The same applies to video game training Eh? I read the introduction/summary of the linked article, it appears to say not that there's a failure to transfer, but that it depends on the game: > Enhancing perceptual and attentional skills requires common demands between the action video games and transfer tasks Adam C. Oei and Michael D. Patterson* Division of Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore Despite increasing evidence that shows action video game play improves perceptual and cognitive skills, the mechanisms of transfer are not well-understood. In line with previous work, we suggest that transfer is dependent upon common demands between the game and transfer task. In the current study, participants played one of four action games with varying speed, visual, and attentional demands for 20 h. We examined whether training enhanced performance for attentional blink, selective attention, attending to multiple items, visual search and auditory detection. Non-gamers who played the game (Modern Combat) with the highest demands showed transfer to tasks of attentional blink and attending to multiple items. The game (MGS Touch) with fewer attentional demands also decreased attentional blink, but to a lesser degree. Other games failed to show transfer, despite having many action game characteristics but at a reduced intensity. The results support the common demands hypothesis. Given that this linkage appears to be misleading, it's hard to take the conclusions of the article seriously; what else are they misleading the reader about?

istjohn 6y ago
I wasn't familiar with the term "attentional blink." From Wikipedia: "The Attentional blink (AB) is a phenomenon that reflects temporal limitations in the ability to deploy visual attention. When people must identify two visual stimuli in quick succession, accuracy for the second stimulus is poor if it occurs within 200 to 500 ms of the first."
boomboomsubban 6y ago
The research is still showing that training with video games is only improving the video game skill, the "common demands." It is not transferring to improved overall cognition. That is in line with what the article says.
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  No, it says that it improves whatever skill is shared in common between the game and other task: > In line with previous work, we suggest that transfer is dependent upon common demands between the game and transfer task. Which is, I mean, duh? Was someone else suggesting that playing a game would improve a completely random skill? Obviously there'd had to be something in common. Maybe I'm misreading this though.
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    Your quote is the "common demands" I mentioned. Video games will improve your ability to do tasks very similar to what happens in the video game. The actual research done isn't relevant to the article, they just used it as one of many papers supporting the "common demands" theory. The article is talking about how those things won't improve your general intelligence, as many people did think playing chess would randomly make you smarter.
    - TulliusCicero 6y ago
      I suppose this depends on how narrow the tasks/skills in question are, as there are various ways to measure general intelligence. For example, there was a study indicating that playing Starcraft improved multi-tasking ability: > Using a meta-analytic Bayes factor approach, we found that the gaming condition that emphasized maintenance and rapid switching between multiple information and action sources led to a large increase in cognitive flexibility as measured by a wide array of non-video gaming tasks. I suppose here the rub would be, exactly how specific or different from the video game were these "non-video gaming tasks"? If they're broad enough that we consider them reasonable measurements of overall multi-tasking ability, then yes, playing Starcraft maybe made you smarter in one particular dimension. If they're all very similar to the game itself, and broader measurements found no change, then no. > To determine changes in cognitive flexibility that occurred as a result of video gaming, participants completed a battery of psychological tasks at pre-test and post-test (at 40 hours of gaming). The battery included measures that address cognitive flexibility as well as measures of unrelated constructs. Measures of flexibility included the Attention Network Test (ANT) [28], Stroop task [29], task switching [30], a novel multi-location memory task, and test of Operating Span (Ospan; distinct from simple counting memory span) [31], [32]. These are classic measures of cognitive flexibility in that they require the switching or coordination of cognitive processes in order to successfully navigate the task at hand. For example, the task switching paradigm involves switching between two different stimulus identification tasks. All the measures in the cognitive flexibility task group assess the ability to coordinate attentional processes between two or more concurrent or alternating operations. Measures of predicted unrelated constructs included the balloon analogue risk task (BART) [33], visual search task [14], information filtering task [34], and WAIS-IV digit span memory task [35], [36]. These tasks were chosen to help delineate the specific hypothesis that RTS training would lead specifically to cognitive flexibility enhancements given that RTS game play stresses fast-paced switching and coordination of decisional processing. The visual search task and the information filtering task were chosen due to their use in previous action video game research [12], in order to differentiate RTS training from action video game training. BART and the digit span memory task were chosen due to further delineate cognitive flexibility from the broad domains of risk sensitivity and general memory. Participant groups were equated on the Multimedia Multitasking Index (MMI), a measure of the amount of time an individual spends simultaneously engaged in more than one form of media [37]. Consistent with best scientific practices and openness, the task grouping and analysis strategy were determined and publically disclosed [38] prior to data collection. Gonna be honest here, that all sounds rather impressive to me but I have no idea what those tests actually entail. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0070350 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

istjohn 6y ago

I wasn't familiar with the term "attentional blink." From Wikipedia: "The Attentional blink (AB) is a phenomenon that reflects temporal limitations in the ability to deploy visual attention. When people must identify two visual stimuli in quick succession, accuracy for the second stimulus is poor if it occurs within 200 to 500 ms of the first."

boomboomsubban 6y ago

The research is still showing that training with video games is only improving the video game skill, the "common demands." It is not transferring to improved overall cognition. That is in line with what the article says.

TulliusCicero 6y ago
No, it says that it improves whatever skill is shared in common between the game and other task: > In line with previous work, we suggest that transfer is dependent upon common demands between the game and transfer task. Which is, I mean, duh? Was someone else suggesting that playing a game would improve a completely random skill? Obviously there'd had to be something in common. Maybe I'm misreading this though.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  Your quote is the "common demands" I mentioned. Video games will improve your ability to do tasks very similar to what happens in the video game. The actual research done isn't relevant to the article, they just used it as one of many papers supporting the "common demands" theory. The article is talking about how those things won't improve your general intelligence, as many people did think playing chess would randomly make you smarter.
  - TulliusCicero 6y ago
    I suppose this depends on how narrow the tasks/skills in question are, as there are various ways to measure general intelligence. For example, there was a study indicating that playing Starcraft improved multi-tasking ability: > Using a meta-analytic Bayes factor approach, we found that the gaming condition that emphasized maintenance and rapid switching between multiple information and action sources led to a large increase in cognitive flexibility as measured by a wide array of non-video gaming tasks. I suppose here the rub would be, exactly how specific or different from the video game were these "non-video gaming tasks"? If they're broad enough that we consider them reasonable measurements of overall multi-tasking ability, then yes, playing Starcraft maybe made you smarter in one particular dimension. If they're all very similar to the game itself, and broader measurements found no change, then no. > To determine changes in cognitive flexibility that occurred as a result of video gaming, participants completed a battery of psychological tasks at pre-test and post-test (at 40 hours of gaming). The battery included measures that address cognitive flexibility as well as measures of unrelated constructs. Measures of flexibility included the Attention Network Test (ANT) [28], Stroop task [29], task switching [30], a novel multi-location memory task, and test of Operating Span (Ospan; distinct from simple counting memory span) [31], [32]. These are classic measures of cognitive flexibility in that they require the switching or coordination of cognitive processes in order to successfully navigate the task at hand. For example, the task switching paradigm involves switching between two different stimulus identification tasks. All the measures in the cognitive flexibility task group assess the ability to coordinate attentional processes between two or more concurrent or alternating operations. Measures of predicted unrelated constructs included the balloon analogue risk task (BART) [33], visual search task [14], information filtering task [34], and WAIS-IV digit span memory task [35], [36]. These tasks were chosen to help delineate the specific hypothesis that RTS training would lead specifically to cognitive flexibility enhancements given that RTS game play stresses fast-paced switching and coordination of decisional processing. The visual search task and the information filtering task were chosen due to their use in previous action video game research [12], in order to differentiate RTS training from action video game training. BART and the digit span memory task were chosen due to further delineate cognitive flexibility from the broad domains of risk sensitivity and general memory. Participant groups were equated on the Multimedia Multitasking Index (MMI), a measure of the amount of time an individual spends simultaneously engaged in more than one form of media [37]. Consistent with best scientific practices and openness, the task grouping and analysis strategy were determined and publically disclosed [38] prior to data collection. Gonna be honest here, that all sounds rather impressive to me but I have no idea what those tests actually entail. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0070350 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...