Previous research has already begun to demonstrate the different cognitive benefits that video games provide. Specifically, previous research has already demonstrated how action video game play has been correlated to increased visual attentional kills. However, previous research is inconclusive as to the effects of action video game play on auditory cognitive function. This study use an audio, visual and audio-visual localization task in order to determine the effects that action video game playing has on accuracy and reaction times. Comparatively to non-action video game players, action video game players were significantly better in the visual condition when a distractor target was present. Notably, action video game play did not affect the visual conditions when no distractor was present, suggesting that action video game play only causes noticeable cognitive improvement in more complex tasks. Action video game players performed similarly to non-action video game players in the audio and audio-visual conditions. Thus, auditory cognitive function is not improved in a similar way to visual cognitive function.
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