The gorilla in the room: The impacts of video-game play on visual attention

•We compared video game play and inattention blindness.•Demographics had no significant effect.•Action-video game play improved the detection of visual stimuli.•Hours of video game play had no significant effect. Early studies of visual attention noted a phenomenon termed ‘inattention blindness’ – t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computers in human behavior 2013-11, Vol.29 (6), p.2183-2187
Main Authors: Vallett, David B., Lamb, Richard L., Annetta, Leonard A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Blindness
Brain
Cognition
Electronic & video games
Human
Human behavior
Learner roles
Mathematical analysis
Stimuli
Video games
Visual
Visual fields
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Summary:•We compared video game play and inattention blindness.•Demographics had no significant effect.•Action-video game play improved the detection of visual stimuli.•Hours of video game play had no significant effect. Early studies of visual attention noted a phenomenon termed ‘inattention blindness’ – the inability of participants to see clear stimuli enter the visual field when attending to something else in that field – and sought to expand the understanding of the phenomenon (Neisser & Becklen, 1975; Simons & Chabris, 1999; Stoffregen, Baldwin, & Flynn, 1993). Other research has focused on the changes to the human brain and cognitive functions as a result of video game play, both in positive and negative contexts (Howard-Jones, Ott, van Leeuwen, and De Smedt (2010)). This quasi-experimental study sought to corroborate some of the findings that tie together these seemingly disparate lines of research, adapting the methodology of the most cited inattention blindness experiment (Simons & Chabris, 1999).
ISSN:0747-5632
1873-7692
DOI:10.1016/j.chb.2013.05.001