The ability to hold visual information in mind over a brief delay is critical for acquiring information and navigating a complex visual world. Despite the ubiquitous nature of visual short-term memory (VSTM) in our everyday lives, this system is fundamentally limited in capacity. Therefore, the potential to improve VSTM through training is a growing area of research. An emerging body of literature suggests that extensive experience playing action video games yields a myriad of perceptual and attentional benefits. Several lines of converging work provide evidence that action video game play influences VSTM as well. The current study utilized a training paradigm to examine whether action video games cause improvements to the quantity and/or the quality of information stored in VSTM and whether these VSTM advantages extend visual working memory (VWM). The results suggest that VSTM capacity is increased after action video game training, as compared to training on a control game, and that some limited improvement to VSTM precision occurs with action game training as well. The VSTM improvements seen in individuals trained on an action video game are not better accounted for by differences in motivation or engagement, differential expectations, or baseline differences in demographics as compared to the control group used. However, these findings do not appear to extend to measures of VWM, nor to verbal working memory. In sum, action video game training represents a potentially unique and engaging platform by which this severely capacity-limited VSTM system might be enhanced. / Psychology
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TEMPLE/oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/810 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Blacker, Kara J. |
| Contributors | Chein, Jason M., Curby, Kim, Olson, Ingrid R., Newcombe, Nora, Weisberg, Robert W., Shipley, Thomas F., Marshall, Peter J. |
| Publisher | Temple University. Libraries |
| Source Sets | Temple University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 71 pages |
| Rights | IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/792, Theses and Dissertations |
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