Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Campus Biotech, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2023 Apr;23(2):276-289. doi: 10.3758/s13415-022-01055-3. Epub 2023 Jan 20.
Action video game players (AVGPs) outperform nonvideo game players (NVGPs) on a wide variety of attentional tasks, mediating benefits to perceptual and cognitive decision processes. A key issue in the literature is the extent to which such benefits transfer beyond cognition. Using steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP) as a neural measure of attentional resource allocation, we investigated whether the attentional benefit of AVGPs generalizes to the processing of rapidly presented facial emotions. AVGPs (n = 36) and NVGPs (n = 32) performed a novel, attention-demanding emotion discrimination task, requiring the identification of a target emotion in one of two laterally presented streams of emotional faces. The emotional faces flickered at either 2.0 Hz or 2.5 Hz. AVGPs outperformed NVGPs at detecting the target emotions regardless of the type of emotion. Correspondingly, attentional modulation of the SSVEP at parieto-occipital recording sites was larger in AVGPs compared with NVGPs. This difference appeared to be driven by a larger response to attended information, as opposed to a reduced response to irrelevant distractor information. Exploratory analyses confirmed that this novel paradigm elicited the expected pattern of event-related potentials associated with target detection and error processing. These components did not, however, differ between groups. Overall, the results indicate enhanced discrimination of facial emotions in AVGPs arising from enhanced attentional processing of emotional information. This presents evidence for the attentional advantage of AVGPs to extend beyond perceptual and cognitive processes.
动作视频游戏玩家（AVGPs）在各种注意力任务上优于非视频游戏玩家（NVGPs），这对感知和认知决策过程有促进作用。文献中的一个关键问题是，这种优势在多大程度上可以超越认知。我们使用稳态视觉诱发电位（SSVEP）作为注意力资源分配的神经测量指标，研究了 AVGPs 的注意力优势是否可以推广到快速呈现的面部情绪处理。AVGPs（n=36）和 NVGPs（n=32）执行了一项新颖的、需要注意力的情绪辨别任务，要求在两个同时呈现的情绪面孔流中识别目标情绪。情绪面孔以 2.0 Hz 或 2.5 Hz 的频率闪烁。无论情绪类型如何，AVGPs 在检测目标情绪方面的表现都优于 NVGPs。相应地，与 NVGPs 相比，在顶枕部记录点的 SSVEP 注意力调制更大。这种差异似乎是由对关注信息的更大反应驱动的，而不是由对不相关干扰信息的反应减少驱动的。探索性分析证实，这种新的范式引发了与目标检测和错误处理相关的预期事件相关电位模式。然而，这些组之间没有差异。总体而言，结果表明 AVGPs 对面部情绪的辨别能力增强，这是由于对情绪信息的注意力处理增强所致。这为 AVGPs 的注意力优势不仅限于感知和认知过程提供了证据。
