Positive Technology Journal

Via Developing Intelligence 

Three years ago, C. Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester conducted a study in which they found that avid video game players were better at several different visual tasks compared to non-gamers ("Action Video Game Modifies Visual Attention," Nature, 2003). In particular, the study showed that video game players had increased visual attention capacity on a flanker distractor task, as well as improved ability to subitize (subitizing is the ability to enumerate a small array of objects without overtly counting each item).

The same authors have now completed a follow-up study that has been released in the current issue of Cognition. The new experiment's findings suggests that the data previously interpreted as supporting an increase in subitizing may actually reflect the deployment of a serial counting strategy on behalf of the video-game players.