Abstract
Action video game playing substantially improves visual performance; however, the source of this improvement remains unclear. Here we use the equivalent external noise technique to characterize the mechanism by which action video games may facilitate performance (Lu & Dosher, 1998). In first study, Action Video Game Players (VGPs) and Non-Action Video Game Players (NVGPs) performed a foveal orientation identification task at different external noise levels. VGPs showed lower thresholds than NVGPs with a marked difference at different noise levels. Perceptual Template Model fitting indicated that there were an 11% additive noise reduction and a 25% external noise exclusion. The causal effect of action video game playing was confirmed in a following 50 hour training study, This work establishes that playing action video games leads to robust internal addictive and external noise exclusion, consistent with the use of better matched perceptual templates. To investigate the discrepancy between our results and previous fovea perceptual learning research (Lu et al, 2004), same stimuli in previous experiment were used in perceptual learning experiment and we find same perceptual template improvement pattern. This suggest both action video game playing and perceptual learning could lead to better perceptual template.