Brief Social Gameplay Accelerates Attentional Reorienting and Enhances Sensorimotor Learning in Preschool Children

A large body of research in developmental science and comparative biology identifies social play as a fundamental driver of learning and experience-dependent plasticity in some species. Rather than rehearsing stereotyped behaviors, social play is thought to promote adaptive responses to uncertainty through dynamic, reciprocal interactions. However, whether these functional properties produce immediate cognitive benefits during early childhood remains unknown. Here, we tested whether a brief session of socio-competitive gameplay (Mario Kart™ 8 Deluxe), implementing key functional properties of social play, could transiently modulate attentional reorienting and sensorimotor learning in preschool children. Using a within-subject crossover design (n = 33), including no-play and an active object-play control (Tangram), we found that only 30minutes of socio-competitive gameplay play accelerated the emergence of inhibition of return and selectively enhanced dominant-hand sensorimotor learning. Importantly, cross-SOA attentional modulation following socio-competitive gameplay was associated with late-phase dominant-hand advantage in manual dexterity. These findings show that brief exposure to a socially contingent digital environment can rapidly modify attentional dynamics and facilitate online sensorimotor learning in five-year-old children. Although digital gameplay cannot fully reproduce the embodied nature of physical social play, our results suggest that videogames implementing key functional properties of social play may transiently engage evolved mechanisms supporting behavioral flexibility and surprise-driven learning. More broadly, the immediate cognitive benefits of play may depend less on its physical form than on the computational demands it places on the developing brain.