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Gepubliceerd in:

07-01-2022 | Original Article

The role of visual working memory capacity in attention capture among video game players

Auteurs: Christopher Hauck, Mei-Ching Lien

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 7/2022

Abstract

It is well established that attention can be captured by salient distractors. Some studies have found that action video game players were less susceptible to attention capture by irrelevant distractors than non-players. Other studies have also found that individuals with greater visual working memory capacity are less susceptible to capture by irrelevant distractors than individuals with lower visual working memory capacity. The present study examined whether action video game players were less susceptible to be captured by salient distractors and, if so, whether that relationship was due to greater visual working memory capacity. Participants completed a questionnaire reporting their video game playing experience, followed by a color change detection task assessing their visual working memory capacity. They then performed an attention capture task, where they determined the orientation of a bar within a shape singleton while attempting to ignore a color singleton distractor that appeared in 50% of the trials. Results showed that action video game players did not produce less capture effect than non-action video game players. However, high visual working memory capacity individuals produced less capture effect than low visual working memory capacity individuals regardless of their video game experience. These results suggest that the ability to resist capture by irrelevant distractors may be better explained by individual differences in visual working memory capacity than by action video game experience.

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In our participant recruitment site, we specifically indicated a requirement of computer monitor with a resolution of 1920 × 1080. Participants were instructed to run the studies in a quiet environment.

We also used median split on the total hours of video game play per week to classify participants to either the video game group (N = 65) or non-video game group (N = 65). A mixed ANOVA was conducted on RT and accuracy as a function of video game group and distractor condition (present vs. absent; a within-subject variable). Results were similar to analyses on data with the splitting of the action video game experience by a fixed criterion. The interaction between group and distractor condition was still not significant on RT, F < 1.0. The capture effect on RT was similar for the video game group (70 ± 12 ms) and the non-video game group (74 ± 13 ms). Again, no effect was found on accuracy.

A hierarchical regression analysis on accuracy data showed none of the models to be significant, Fs < 1.0.

We also examined the relationship between capture effect, K value, and the number of hours on only action video game playing. None of the correlations were significant, |rs(88)| 0.19, ps ≥ 0. 07.

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Titel: The role of visual working memory capacity in attention capture among video game players
Auteurs: Christopher Hauck
Mei-Ching Lien
Publicatiedatum: 07-01-2022
Uitgeverij: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research / Uitgave 7/2022
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-021-01640-0

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