Current Video Gaming Is Associated with Visual-Psychomotor Efficiency and Visuomotor Coordination in Adolescents

Video gaming places repeated demands on rapid visual information processing, response selection, and visuomotor coordination. However, it remains unclear whether current gaming in adolescence is associated with broadly enhanced cognitive performance or with selective differences in visual-psychomotor functioning. This study examined associations between current video gaming and visual-psychomotor efficiency, visuomotor coordination, visual search, perceptual performance, and sequential-executive processing in adolescents.

This exploratory secondary cross-sectional reanalysis used an existing dataset of 120 adolescents aged 14-16 years (60 girls, 60 boys), including 92 current and 28 non-current players. Five principal outcomes were analysed using age- and sex-adjusted regression, HC3 standard errors, and Benjamini-Hochberg correction. Sensitivity analyses examined girls, school membership, and all 121 source records.

Current gaming was associated with higher PiM (B = 6.92, 95% CI [1.24, 12.59], q = 0.043) and shorter Number Localization time (9.6%, q = 0.042) in the principal models. PiM estimates remained positive across school and sample sensitivity analyses, although not every leave-one-school-out model met the FDR threshold. Inference for visual-search time was more sensitive to analytical specification. The component analyses described overlapping measures underlying PiM. Intensity, tenure, and genre analyses were inconclusive after correction.

Current gaming was associated most consistently with greater psychomotor throughput. Visual-search estimates generally favoured current players but were less stable across specifications. These exploratory cross-sectional findings do not establish a causal benefit, a general cognitive advantage, or an optimal gaming dose or genre.