Cited by 27Cognitive Abilities and TestingDigital Games and MediaCognitive Functions and Memory

Personalized Adaptive Training Improves Performance at a Professional First-Person Shooter Action Videogame

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Neri, Francesco, Smeralda, Carmelo Luca, Momi, Davide, Sprugnoli, Giulia, Menardi, Arianna, Ferrone, Salvatore, Rossi, Simone, Rossi, Alessandro +2 more·2021·Frontiers in Psychology

Abstract

First-Person Shooter (FPS) game experience can be transferred to untrained cognitive functions such as attention, visual short-term memory, spatial cognition, and decision-making. However, previous studies have been using off-the-shelf FPS games based on predefined gaming settings, therefore it is not known whether such improvement of in game performance and transfer of abilities can be further improved by creating a in-game, adaptive in-game training protocol. To address this question, we compared the impact of a popular FPS-game (Counter-Strike:Global-Offensive–CS:GO) with an ad hoc version of the game based on a personalized, adaptive algorithm modifying the artificial intelligence of opponents as well as the overall game difficulty on the basis of individual gaming performance. Two groups of FPS-naïve healthy young participants were randomly assigned to playing one of the two game versions (11 and 10 participants, respectively) 2 h/day for 3 weeks in a controlled laboratory setting, including daily in-game performance monitoring and extensive cognitive evaluations administered before, immediately after, and 3 months after training. Participants exposed to the adaptive version of the game were found to progress significantly faster in terms of in-game performance, reaching gaming scenarios up to 2.5 times more difficult than the group exposed to standard CS:GO (p< 0.05). A significant increase in cognitive performance was also observed. Personalized FPS gaming can significantly speed-up the learning curve of action videogame-players, with possible future applications for expert-video-gamers and potential relevance for clinical-rehabilitative applications.

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Authors
Neri, F., Smeralda, C. L., Momi, D., Sprugnoli, G., Menardi, A., Ferrone, S., Rossi, S., Rossi, A., Di Lorenzo, G., & Santarnecchi, E.
Affiliations
  • University of Siena (IT)
  • Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (US)
Corresponding author
Santarnecchi, Emiliano
Venue
Frontiers in Psychology
Published
2021-06-10
Volume
12
Pages
598410-598410
ISSN
1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3173095692
Cited by
27
References
93
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 2
FWCI
3.14
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Florence Research (University of Florence) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Padua Research Archive (University of Padova) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Cineca Institutional Research Information System (Tor Vergata University) (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Use Siena air (University of Siena) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
Università degli Studi di Siena
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Games and Media
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
Keywords
first-person shooter games, adaptive training, individualized training, transfer of learning, game difficulty adaptation, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, cognitive performance, learning curve, video game training

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