Cognitive Gamer

Episode 03: Attention, Please! The Role of Attention in Playing Games

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You need to have focused attention while playing games. If you don’t, you might miss a critical move in a board game, or totally miss that other player about to blast you in Call of Duty. This episode considers how attention works as we play games.

Game References

Captain Sonar, Horizon Zero Dawn, Pandemic Legacy, Stroop

Research References

James, W. (2013). The Principles of Psychology. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Simons, D. J., & Chabris, C. F. (1999). Gorillas in our midst: Sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events. Perception, 28(9), 1059-1074.

Simons, D. J., & Levin, D. T. (1998). Failure to detect changes to people during a real-world interaction. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 5(4), 644-649.

Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18(6), 643-662.

Simons and Chabris Visual Attention Demo

Simons and Levin Visual Attention Demo

Change Blindness Demo