Visual Learning: the case of video games

描述（申请人提供）：电子游戏已经成为当今社会的一种常见活动；然而，我们对这种活动对我们感知能力的影响知之甚少。我们之前的研究表明，玩动作视频游戏会改变视觉注意力，比如在混乱的环境中寻找目标的能力，或者处理快速视觉信息流的能力。我们的主要目标是进一步描述电子游戏对成人和儿童视觉技能的影响。对电子游戏使用影响的研究具有广泛的意义，从公共政策到健康和绩效培训问题。我们的目的不是研究休闲娱乐对社会的影响；相反，我们通过确定视频游戏对视力的影响，以及对专门的视觉运动任务（如航空管制员所执行的任务）的训练，将重点放在健康和表现训练上。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Video game playing has become a common activity in today's society; however, little is known about the effects of this activity on our perceptual abilities. Our previous work indicates that playing action video games modifies visual attention, such as the ability to look for a target in a cluttered environment or to process a rapid stream of visual information. Our broad aim is to further characterize the effects of video game playing on visual skills in adults and children. The study of the impact of video game use has broad implications, ranging from public policy to issues in health and performance training. Our aim is not to study the impact of casual entertainment on the society; rather we focus on health and performance training by determining the impact of video games on vision and on training for specialized visuo-motor tasks such as those performed by airline controllers. We will first ask whether the impact of game playing generalizes to various aspects of visual attention. These studies will be carried in adults and children. We will then test the possibility that video game playing may also modify early visual processes such as the bottom line on the eye chart. Finally, we will ask whether video game playing may also alter visual short-term memory or the ability to hold visual information in mind. The possibility that video game playing modifies several different aspects of visual processing is of theoretical significance as the literature on perceptual learning documents a great specificity of learning. Hence, learning a new task typically benefits performance on that very task, but fails to generalize to similar tasks. In contrast, the aim of this work is to test the possibility that video game playing benefits not only performance on the played video game, but also on a wide range of other visuo-motor tasks. This research holds therefore the promise to be of practical significance for rehabilitation of patients with visual deficits and/or the training of any personnel who work in environments that call for enhanced visual performance.