Enhanced memory-driven attentional capture in action video game players

Bao Zhang; Shuhui Liu; Ziwen Luo; Sai Huang; Jie Sui

doi:10.1016/j.chb.2020.106271

Enhanced memory-driven attentional capture in action video game players

Bao Zhang, Shuhui Liu, Ziwen Luo, Sai Huang (Corresponding Author), Jie Sui^* (Corresponding Author)

^*Corresponding author for this work

Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Action video game players (AVGPs) have been shown to have an enhanced cognitive control ability to reduce stimulus-driven attentional capture (e.g., from an exogenous salient distractor) compared with non-action video game players (NVGPs). Here we examined whether these benefits could extend to the memory-driven attentional capture (i.e., working memory (WM) representations bias visual attention toward a matching distractor). AVGPs and NVGPs were instructed to complete a visual search task while actively maintaining 1, 2 or 4 items in WM. There was a robust advantage to the memory-driven attentional capture in reaction time and first eye movement fixation in the AVGPs compared to the NVGPs when they had to maintain one item in WM. Moreover, the effect of memory-driven attentional capture was maintained in the AVGPs when the WM load was increased, but it was eliminated in the NVGPs. The results suggest that AVGPs may devote more attentional resources to sustaining the
cognitive control rather than to suppressing the attentional capture driven by the active WM representations.

Original language	English
Article number	106271
Number of pages	7
Journal	Computers in Human Behavior
Volume	107
Early online date	18 Jan 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106271
Publication status	Published - Jun 2020

Bibliographical note

This work was supported by the Projects of the Social Sciences and Humanities on Young Fund of the Ministry of Education, China (16YJC190028), Guangzhou University's 2017 Training Program for Young Top-notch Personnel (BJ201720) and Team Project for Humanities and social sciences (201604XSTD) for BZ and Guangzhou University's training program for excellent new-recruited doctors (YB201705) for SH.

Keywords

Action video game players
Memory-driven attentional capture
Cognitive promotion
Working memory
LOAD
SKILLS
VISUAL WORKING-MEMORY
GUIDANCE
MULTIPLE
FEATURES
COMPETITION
INTERFERENCE
SELECTION

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Cite this

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title = "Enhanced memory-driven attentional capture in action video game players",

abstract = "Action video game players (AVGPs) have been shown to have an enhanced cognitive control ability to reduce stimulus-driven attentional capture (e.g., from an exogenous salient distractor) compared with non-action video game players (NVGPs). Here we examined whether these benefits could extend to the memory-driven attentional capture (i.e., working memory (WM) representations bias visual attention toward a matching distractor). AVGPs and NVGPs were instructed to complete a visual search task while actively maintaining 1, 2 or 4 items in WM. There was a robust advantage to the memory-driven attentional capture in reaction time and first eye movement fixation in the AVGPs compared to the NVGPs when they had to maintain one item in WM. Moreover, the effect of memory-driven attentional capture was maintained in the AVGPs when the WM load was increased, but it was eliminated in the NVGPs. The results suggest that AVGPs may devote more attentional resources to sustaining thecognitive control rather than to suppressing the attentional capture driven by the active WM representations. ",

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author = "Bao Zhang and Shuhui Liu and Ziwen Luo and Sai Huang and Jie Sui",

note = "This work was supported by the Projects of the Social Sciences and Humanities on Young Fund of the Ministry of Education, China (16YJC190028), Guangzhou University's 2017 Training Program for Young Top-notch Personnel (BJ201720) and Team Project for Humanities and social sciences (201604XSTD) for BZ and Guangzhou University's training program for excellent new-recruited doctors (YB201705) for SH. ",

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Enhanced memory-driven attentional capture in action video game players

Abstract

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Keywords

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