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E. C. Tolman emphasized the purposiveness of behavior — the idea that much of our behavior is goal-directed. For instance, employees who aim for a promotion work diligently to meet their targets. Tolman argued that when classical conditioning and operant conditioning occur, the organism acquires certain expectations. In classical conditioning, a child might fear a dog because they expect it to bite. In operant conditioning, a person might consistently work overtime because they expect a...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 16, 2025

Combining Computer Game-Based Behavioural Experiments With High-Density EEG and Infrared Gaze Tracking

Combining Computer Game-Based Behavioural Experiments With High-Density EEG and Infrared Gaze Tracking

Published on: December 16, 2010

Action video game play facilitates "learning to learn".

Ru-Yuan Zhang^1,2,3, Adrien Chopin^4,5,6, Kengo Shibata^4,5

¹Institute of Psychology and Behavioral Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200030, Shanghai, China.

Communications Biology

|October 15, 2021

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Action video game training boosts cognitive skills by improving how quickly people learn new tasks, a process called "learning to learn." This enhanced learning speed in perception and working memory was confirmed in controlled studies.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Science
Neuroscience
Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

Action video game (AVG) training is known to enhance diverse cognitive abilities.
The underlying mechanism for this broad enhancement remains under investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether AVG training enhances learning rates in new tasks, a concept termed "learning to learn."
To determine if improved learning speed mediates the broad cognitive benefits of AVG training.

Main Methods:

Two controlled intervention studies were conducted.
Participants were trained on either action video games or non-action control games.
Subsequent learning rates in perception and working memory tasks were assessed.

Main Results:

Individuals trained on action video games demonstrated significantly faster learning in both perception and working memory tasks compared to controls.
A larger, pre-registered follow-up study with blinding and expectation measures confirmed the causal effect of AVG play on enhanced learning ability.

Conclusions:

Action video game training enhances the speed of learning new cognitive tasks.
Improved "learning to learn" is a key mechanism explaining how AVG interventions broadly improve cognitive performance.