Does Mindset Moderate the Cognitive Benefits of Action Video Games?

Abstract

Video game training has gained a lot of media attention as a way to improve cognitive abilities, but the evidence is mixed. There have been many findings on how one’s mindset can affect people’s performance and on how it can be manipulated. This study looked at the effects of video game training and mindset on cognitive abilities. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: the exergame Dance Central 3 and the action video game Halo 3. The participants took pre-training assessments, trained for five hours over three weeks, and took the post-training assessments that tested the same areas. After each week the participants received either malleable of fixed mindset feedback. We found that the mindset feedback did not have any effect on the cognitive skills tested. However, video game training helped both groups improve on a number of cognitive tasks. The most significant finding was that the Dance Central 3 group found the most improvement on the Body Backwards Span task compared to the Halo 3 group.