Neurocognitive analyses reveal that video game players exhibit enhanced implicit temporal processing

Foerster, Francois R.; Chidharom, Matthieu; Bonnefond, Anne; Giersch, Anne · 2022 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-04033-0

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Summary

This study investigates whether action video game players (VGPs) exhibit enhanced implicit temporal processing compared to non-video game players (NVGPs). While previous research established that video games improve explicit attentional control, the role of implicit timing—unconscious preparation based on the passage of time—remained unclear. The authors hypothesized that the repetitive need to predict enemy appearances in action games might refine these implicit mechanisms, potentially offering insights for rehabilitating psychiatric populations with implicit timing disorders. To test this, the researchers conducted a cross-sectional study with 46 participants (23 VGPs and 23 NVGPs) immersed in a virtual reality environment. Participants performed a variable foreperiod task where they had to react as quickly as possible to a visual target appearing either 400 ms or 1000 ms after a warning signal. The task included two conditions: a neutral cue condition, relying on implicit timing based on the elapsed time, and a temporal cue condition, where a robot’s color explicitly indicated the target’s timing. The study collected behavioral reaction times, oculomotor data via eye-tracking, and electroencephalography (EEG) to measure neurocognitive markers such as the contingent negative variation (CNV), theta-band oscillations, and phase-amplitude coupling (PAC). The results demonstrated that VGPs significantly outperformed NVGPs in implicit temporal processing. Behaviorally, VGPs showed a greater benefit from the passage of time in the neutral cue condition, reacting faster when the foreperiod was long compared to short, an effect absent in NVGPs. Oculomotor analysis revealed that VGPs exhibited faster reflexive saccadic inhibition and rebound following the warning signal, with the latency of this inhibition negatively correlating with their benefit from implicit timing. Neurophysiologically, VGPs displayed reduced mid-frontal theta-band power when target probability was low, indicating more efficient adaptation of expectations. Furthermore, VGPs showed increased fronto-motor theta-beta phase-amplitude coupling in the neutral condition, a marker associated with implicit temporal processing. In contrast, no significant group differences were found in explicit temporal orienting measures, such as CNV amplitude, suggesting that VGPs did not possess superior explicit timing skills in this paradigm. These findings highlight that action video game training specifically enhances implicit, rather than explicit, temporal preparation mechanisms. The study identifies faster oculomotor reflexes and optimized neural coupling as key neurocognitive substrates of this enhancement. By demonstrating that VGPs can better deploy and withhold cognitive resources based on implicit time expectations, the research underscores the neglected role of implicit timing in gaming literature. The authors suggest that these findings support the potential of game-based interventions to remediate implicit timing deficits observed in psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, by targeting these specific automatic processing mechanisms.

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• time perception