Researchers collected data from 51 Iowa State undergrads ages 18 to 33, about half of whom reported playing less than a couple hours of video games a week, and about half of whom reported playing an average of 43 hours a week.
Researchers monitored brain activity while participants performed the Stroop Task, a standard measure to determine attention levels. Participants had to identify the color of a word when the color and word matched, and when they did not match. (It typically takes longer to indicate the color when the word does not match.)They found that the ability to pay attention reactively (i.e. when prompted by a trigger, such as being shot at) is similar across both types of gamers, but brain wave and behavioral measures of proactive attention (i.e. anticipating a mechanism, such as collecting pots of gold) are significantly diminished in the 43-hour-a-week gamers.
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