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Action Video Game Training for Healthy Adults: A Meta-Analytic Study
Open accessAbstract
Action video game (AVG) has attracted increasing attention from both the public and from researchers. More and more studies found video game training improved a variety of cognitive functions. However, it remains controversial whether healthy adults can benefit from AVG training, and whether young and older adults benefit similarly from AVG training. In the present study, we aimed to quantitatively assess the AVG training effect on the cognitive ability of adults and to compare the training effects on young and older adults by conducting a meta-analysis on previous findings. We systematically searched video game training studies published between January 1986 and July 2015. Twenty studies were included in the present meta-analysis, for a total of 313 participants included in the training group and 323 participants in the control group. The results demonstrate that healthy adults achieve moderate benefit from AVG training in overall cognitive ability and moderate to small benefit in specific cognitive domains. In contrast, young adults gain more benefits from AVG training than older adults in both overall cognition and specific cognitive domains. Age, education, and some methodological factors, such as the session duration, session number, total training duration, and control group type, modulated the training effects. These meta-analytic findings provide evidence that AVG training may serve as an efficient way to improve the cognitive performance of healthy adults. We also discussed several directions for future AVG training studies.
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“Additionally, a meta-analysis found that young adults without prior extensive gaming experience saw benefits in visuospatial ability, attention, and processing speed after video game training [35].”
From Health Benefits of Video Games in Adolescents and Young Adults (2026) · cites this paper as [35]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Wang, P., Liu, H.-H., Zhu, X.-T., Meng, T., Li, H.-J., & Zuo, X.-N.
- Affiliations
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- China Youth University for Political Sciences (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Li, Hui-Jie
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2016-06-17
- Volume
- 7
- Pages
- 907-907
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4911405
- OpenAlex
- W2419275396
- Cited by
- 145
- References
- 103
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 21.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Institutional Repository of Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) (submittedVersion)
- Greater South Information System
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (973 Program, 81171409)
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2016084)
- National Key Research and Development Program of China (2015CB351702)
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association (2016084)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Educational Games and Gamification
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
- Keywords
- action video games, video game training, cognitive training, cognitive ability, healthy adults, young and older adults, age differences, training effects, modulation factor, session duration, training duration
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