Working memory
Does Playing Casual Video Games Improve Cognitive Skills?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Training with casual video games designed to test working memory and reasoning improved players' divided attention skills, but did not boost other mental abilities like memory or general intelligence.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Working memory training using games generally fails to expand core cognitive capacity or transfer to general intelligence, although it can improve task-specific attention-focusing strategies.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Training with casual video games designed to exercise working memory and reasoning fails to improve general fluid intelligence, suggesting that these stable cognitive traits are resistant to short-term digital interventions.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Discoveries this paper informs or conflicts with
- Working-memory training gains look like better strategies, not a bigger memory store
This paper informs this development.
Study at a glance
- Design
- RCT — Random assignment to two WM/reasoning casual-game groups, an active low-demand game control, or no-contact control; 10 sessions
- N
- N=209 · Young adults who completed the study after exclusions listed in the paper's Table
- Population
- Community-recruited young adults in Champaign-Urbana
- Outcome
- Transfer to untrained cognitive tests after casual-game training; no significant fluid-intelligence gains versus controls
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Inspect source passages
Does Playing Casual Video Games Improve Cognitive Skills?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
209 young adults
A total of 209 young adults completed the study (see Table for information on excluded participants and other basic demographic information).
10 sessions
Participants assigned to the training groups completed training sessions two to three times per week, for a total of 10 sessions.
Key findings
Both groups that practiced working memory and reasoning games showed significant improvements in a composite measure of divided attention compared to the control groups. However, this training did not produce any significant improvements in general fluid intelligence, working memory capacity, episodic memory, or perceptual speed. Interestingly, individuals with lower initial reasoning abilities showed the largest improvements in divided attention from the cognitive game training.
Methodology
Researchers recruited 209 young adults and randomly assigned them to one of four groups: two training groups playing casual games focused on working memory and reasoning, an active control group playing casual games with low cognitive demand, and a passive no-contact control group. Participants in the training groups completed 10 sessions of game play, playing four games for ~20 min each per session. Before and after the training, all participants completed cognitive tests.
Limitations
This study only tested healthy young adults between the ages 18 and 30, meaning the findings may not apply to other cohorts like children or older adults. Additionally, playing casual video games for 15 h did not improve most aspects of cognition, which indicates that this training period may have been too short to change stable traits like fluid intelligence. Because the researchers did not perform follow-up tests, it is also unclear if the small gains in divided attention persist over time.
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