Shooting Your Accuracy in the Foot? Examining the Short-Term Effect of Playing an Action or Strategy Video Game on Cognitive Control

Michaela Rice, Alexis Lease, MaLia Walker and Kira Bailey
Additional contact information
Michaela Rice: David O. Robbins Neuroscience Program, Psychology Department, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH 43015, USA
Alexis Lease: David O. Robbins Neuroscience Program, Psychology Department, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH 43015, USA
MaLia Walker: David O. Robbins Neuroscience Program, Psychology Department, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH 43015, USA
Kira Bailey: David O. Robbins Neuroscience Program, Psychology Department, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH 43015, USA

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 15, 1-13

Abstract: The current study examined the effects of brief video game exposure on cognitive control using event-related potentials (ERPs). Cognitive control was assessed by ERP components associated with the ability to detect (N2) and resolve (SP) conflict when the conflict was either expected or unexpected. After playing either an action or strategy video game, participants completed a counting Stroop task while ERPs were recorded. The proportion of congruent to incongruent trials was manipulated across blocks to create conditions where conflict was expected or unexpected. While visual inspection of the behavioral and neural data revealed interesting patterns by video game, none of those effects were statistically significant. This is consistent with some previous work and inconsistent with other published data, suggesting that there is still much to learn about the relationship between cognitive control and video game experience.

Keywords: video games; cognitive control; ERPs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/15/8001/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/15/8001/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:15:p:8001-:d:603548

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().