Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Hum Factors. 2024 Jan;66(1):258-270. doi: 10.1177/00187208211064683. Epub 2022 Jan 10.
Do real-time strategy (RTS) video gamers have better attentional control? To examine this issue, we tested experienced versus inexperienced RTS video gamers on multi-object tracking tasks (MOT) and dual-MOT tasks with visual or auditory secondary tasks (dMOT). We employed a street-crossing task with a visual working memory task as a secondary task in a virtual reality (VR) environment to examine any generalized attentional advantage.
Similar to action video games, RTS video games require players to switch attention between multiple visual objects and views. However, whether the attentional control advantage is limited by sensory modalities or generalizes to real-life tasks remains unclear.
In study 1, 25 RTS video game players (SVGP) and 25 non-video game players (NVGP) completed the MOT task and two dMOT tasks. In study 2, a different sample with 25 SVGP and 25 NVGP completed a simulated street-crossing task with the visual dual task in a VR environment.
After controlling the effects of the speed-accuracy trade-off, SVGP showed better performance than NVGP in the MOT task and the visual dMOT task, but SVGP did not perform better in either the auditory dMOT task or the street-crossing task.
RTS video gamers had better attentional control in visual computer tasks, but not in the auditory tasks and the VR tasks. Attentional control benefits associated with RTS video game experience may be limited by sensory modalities, and may not translate to performance benefits in real-life tasks.
即时战略（RTS）视频游戏玩家是否具有更好的注意力控制能力？为了检验这一问题，我们在多目标跟踪任务（MOT）和具有视觉或听觉次要任务的双重多目标跟踪任务（dMOT）上测试了有经验和无经验的 RTS 视频游戏玩家。我们在虚拟现实（VR）环境中采用了带有视觉工作记忆任务的过街任务作为次要任务，以检验任何普遍的注意力优势。
与动作视频游戏类似，RTS 视频游戏要求玩家在多个视觉对象和视图之间切换注意力。然而，注意力控制优势是否受到感觉模态的限制或是否推广到现实生活中的任务尚不清楚。
在研究 1 中，25 名 RTS 视频游戏玩家（SVGP）和 25 名非视频游戏玩家（NVGP）完成了 MOT 任务和两个 dMOT 任务。在研究 2 中，另一组 25 名 SVGP 和 25 名 NVGP 在 VR 环境中使用视觉双重任务完成了模拟过街任务。
在控制速度准确性权衡的影响后，SVGP 在 MOT 任务和视觉 dMOT 任务中的表现优于 NVGP，但在听觉 dMOT 任务或过街任务中，SVGP 的表现并未更好。
RTS 视频游戏玩家在视觉计算机任务中具有更好的注意力控制能力，但在听觉任务和 VR 任务中则不然。与 RTS 视频游戏经验相关的注意力控制优势可能受到感觉模态的限制，并且可能不会转化为现实生活任务中的表现优势。
