Effects of Nonaction Videogames on Attention and Memory in Young Adults

In this intervention study, we investigated the benefits of nonaction videogames on measures of selective attention and visuospatial working memory (WM) in young adults. Forty-eight young adults were randomly assigned to the experimental group or to the active control group. The experimental group played 10 nonaction adaptive videogames selected from Lumosity, whereas the active control group played two nonadaptive simulation-strategy games (SimCity and The Sims). Participants in both groups completed 15 training sessions of 30 minutes each. The training was conducted in small groups. All the participants were tested individually before and after training to assess possible transfer effects to selective attention, using a Cross-modal Oddball task, inhibition with the Stroop task, and visuospatial WM enhancements with the Corsi blocks task. Participants improved videogame performance across the training sessions. The results of the transfer tasks show that the two groups benefited similarly from game training. They were less distracted and improved visuospatial WM. Overall, there was no significant interaction between group (group trained with adaptive nonaction videogames and the active control group that played simulation games) and session (pre- and post-assessment). As we did not have a passive nonintervention control group, we cannot conclude that adaptive nonaction videogames had a positive effect, because some external factors might account for the pre- and post-test improvements observed in both groups.