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Published on: December 16, 2010
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Violent Video Game Play and (De)Sensitization to Threat
Steven J Kirsh1, Jeffrey R W Mounts1
1Department of Psychology, SUNY Geneseo, Geneseo, New York, USA.
Aggressive Behavior
|November 5, 2024
Summary
Frequent violent video game play may reduce sensitivity to nonviolent conflict imagery. This study found that more violent video game exposure was linked to a decreased ability to identify targets following nonviolent conflict images, but not violent ones.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Media Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Violent video games are pervasive in modern media.
- Concerns exist regarding their impact on cognitive functions, particularly attention and emotional processing.
- Emotion-induced blindness (EIB) offers a paradigm to study attentional consequences of emotional stimuli.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between violent video game play frequency and attentional desensitization or sensitization.
- To examine how violent video game exposure affects responses to violent versus nonviolent conflict imagery.
- To explore the role of EIB in mediating these effects.
Main Methods:
- Two hundred thirty-two participants reported their most played video games and weekly play time.
- Participants completed an emotion-induced blindness task using violent and nonviolent interpersonal conflict images as distractors.
- Statistical analyses assessed the relationship between violent video game play frequency and target identification accuracy.
Main Results:
- Weekly violent video game play showed a negative association with target identification following nonviolent interpersonal conflict images.
- No significant association was found between violent video game play and target identification following violent images.
- These findings suggest a specific impact on attentional processing related to nonviolent threat cues.
Conclusions:
- Violent video game play may lead to attentional desensitization specifically towards nonviolent conflict stimuli.
- The saliency and nature of threatening images appear to influence attentional processing differently.
- Further research is needed to understand the long-term implications of these attentional shifts.
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