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Added proper references.
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Steven Jeuris ♦
Steven Jeuris ♦
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The whole of the research on this topic has some very, very serious methodological flaws, which mean there is currently surprisingly little evidence that video games or expert gamers are somehow 'special'. In particular, there are serious concerns regarding demand characteristics.

Don't just take my word for it, take a look at the extremely comprehensive and detailed paper on this topic here:by http://www.frontiersin.org/Cognition/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00226/abstractBoot et al. (2011). It's open access, too!

Here's a choice quote:

One possible factor that could lead to the spurious conclusion of gaming benefits on cognition is differential expectations for experts and novices. If gamers are recruited to a study because of their gaming experience, they might expect to perform well because of their expertise, and a belief that you should perform well can influence performance on measures as basic as visual acuity (Langer et al., 2010). Imagine that you are recruited to par- ticipateparticipate in a study because of your gaming expertise, and the study consists of game like computer tasks. If you know you have been recruited because you are an expert, the demand characteristicsdemand characteristics of the experimental situation will motivate you to try to perform well. In contrast, a non-gamer selected without any mention of gaming will not experience such demand characteristics, so will be less motivated. Any difference in task performance, then, would be analogous to a placebo effect.

Almost all studies comparing expert and novice gamers either neglect to report how subjects were recruited or make no effort to hide the nature of the study from participants. Many studies recruit experts through advertisements explicitly seeking peo- plepeople with game experience, thereby violating a core principle of experimental design and introducing the potential for differential demand characteristics (Boot et al., 2008;Colzato et al., 2010;KarleBoot et al., 2008;Colzato et al., 2010;[Karle et al., 20104). The problem is amplified because gamers often are familiar with media and blog coverage of the benefits of gaming, so they expect to perform better when they have been > recruited for their gaming expertise.

Boot, W. R., Blakely, D. P., & Simons, D. J. (2011). [Do action video games improve perception and cognition?][2]. Frontiers in psychology, 2. Boot, W. R., Kramer, A. F., Simons, D. J., Fabiani, M., and Gratton, G. (2008). [The effects of video game playing on attention, memory, and executive control.][3] Acta Psychol. (Amst.) 129, 387–398. Colzato, L. S., van Leeuwen, P. J. A., van den Wildenberg, W. P. M., and Hommel, B. (2010). DOOM’d to switch: superior cognitive flexibility in players of first person shooter games. Front. Psychol. 1, 1–5. Karle, J. W., Watter, S., and Shedden, J. M. (2010). [Task switching in video game players: benefits of selective attention but not resistance to proactive interference.][4] Acta Psychol. (Amst.) 134, 70–78.

The whole of the research on this topic has some very, very serious methodological flaws, which mean there is currently surprisingly little evidence that video games or expert gamers are somehow 'special'. In particular, there are serious concerns regarding demand characteristics.

Don't just take my word for it, take a look at the extremely comprehensive and detailed paper on this topic here: http://www.frontiersin.org/Cognition/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00226/abstract It's open access, too!

Here's a choice quote:

One possible factor that could lead to the spurious conclusion of gaming benefits on cognition is differential expectations for experts and novices. If gamers are recruited to a study because of their gaming experience, they might expect to perform well because of their expertise, and a belief that you should perform well can influence performance on measures as basic as visual acuity (Langer et al., 2010). Imagine that you are recruited to par- ticipate in a study because of your gaming expertise, and the study consists of game like computer tasks. If you know you have been recruited because you are an expert, the demand characteristics of the experimental situation will motivate you to try to perform well. In contrast, a non-gamer selected without any mention of gaming will not experience such demand characteristics, so will be less motivated. Any difference in task performance, then, would be analogous to a placebo effect.

Almost all studies comparing expert and novice gamers either neglect to report how subjects were recruited or make no effort to hide the nature of the study from participants. Many studies recruit experts through advertisements explicitly seeking peo- ple with game experience, thereby violating a core principle of experimental design and introducing the potential for differential demand characteristics (Boot et al., 2008;Colzato et al., 2010;Karle et al., 2010). The problem is amplified because gamers often are familiar with media and blog coverage of the benefits of gaming, so they expect to perform better when they have been > recruited for their gaming expertise.

The whole of the research on this topic has some very, very serious methodological flaws, which mean there is currently surprisingly little evidence that video games or expert gamers are somehow 'special'. In particular, there are serious concerns regarding demand characteristics.

Don't just take my word for it, take a look at the extremely comprehensive and detailed paper by Boot et al. (2011). It's open access, too!

Here's a choice quote:

One possible factor that could lead to the spurious conclusion of gaming benefits on cognition is differential expectations for experts and novices. If gamers are recruited to a study because of their gaming experience, they might expect to perform well because of their expertise, and a belief that you should perform well can influence performance on measures as basic as visual acuity (Langer et al., 2010). Imagine that you are recruited to participate in a study because of your gaming expertise, and the study consists of game like computer tasks. If you know you have been recruited because you are an expert, the demand characteristics of the experimental situation will motivate you to try to perform well. In contrast, a non-gamer selected without any mention of gaming will not experience such demand characteristics, so will be less motivated. Any difference in task performance, then, would be analogous to a placebo effect.

Almost all studies comparing expert and novice gamers either neglect to report how subjects were recruited or make no effort to hide the nature of the study from participants. Many studies recruit experts through advertisements explicitly seeking people with game experience, thereby violating a core principle of experimental design and introducing the potential for differential demand characteristics (Boot et al., 2008;Colzato et al., 2010;[Karle et al., 20104). The problem is amplified because gamers often are familiar with media and blog coverage of the benefits of gaming, so they expect to perform better when they have been recruited for their gaming expertise.

Boot, W. R., Blakely, D. P., & Simons, D. J. (2011). [Do action video games improve perception and cognition?][2]. Frontiers in psychology, 2. Boot, W. R., Kramer, A. F., Simons, D. J., Fabiani, M., and Gratton, G. (2008). [The effects of video game playing on attention, memory, and executive control.][3] Acta Psychol. (Amst.) 129, 387–398. Colzato, L. S., van Leeuwen, P. J. A., van den Wildenberg, W. P. M., and Hommel, B. (2010). DOOM’d to switch: superior cognitive flexibility in players of first person shooter games. Front. Psychol. 1, 1–5. Karle, J. W., Watter, S., and Shedden, J. M. (2010). [Task switching in video game players: benefits of selective attention but not resistance to proactive interference.][4] Acta Psychol. (Amst.) 134, 70–78.
Post Merged (destination) from cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/48/…
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vizzero
vizzero
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The whole of the research on this topic has some very, very serious methodological flaws, which mean there is currently surprisingly little evidence that video games or expert gamers are somehow 'special'. In particular, there are serious concerns regarding demand characteristics.

Don't just take my word for it, take a look at the extremely comprehensive and detailed paper on this topic here: http://www.frontiersin.org/Cognition/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00226/abstract It's open access, too!

Here's a choice quote:

One possible factor that could lead to the spurious conclusion of gaming benefits on cognition is differential expectations for experts and novices. If gamers are recruited to a study because of their gaming experience, they might expect to perform well because of their expertise, and a belief that you should perform well can influence performance on measures as basic as visual acuity (Langer et al., 2010). Imagine that you are recruited to par- ticipate in a study because of your gaming expertise, and the study consists of game like computer tasks. If you know you have been recruited because you are an expert, the demand characteristics of the experimental situation will motivate you to try to perform well. In contrast, a non-gamer selected without any mention of gaming will not experience such demand characteristics, so will be less motivated. Any difference in task performance, then, would be analogous to a placebo effect.

Almost all studies comparing expert and novice gamers either neglect to report how subjects were recruited or make no effort to hide the nature of the study from participants. Many studies recruit experts through advertisements explicitly seeking peo- ple with game experience, thereby violating a core principle of experimental design and introducing the potential for differential demand characteristics (Boot et al., 2008;Colzato et al., 2010;Karle et al., 2010). The problem is amplified because gamers often are familiar with media and blog coverage of the benefits of gaming, so they expect to perform better when they have been > recruited for their gaming expertise.