Visual-motor sequence learning by competitive fighting game experts

Playing action video games has been reported to modify some cognitive functions. However, no study has investigated whether the explicit learning of arbitrary visual-motor sequences would differ between video game expert and non-expert groups. The present study compared the explicit learning of visual-motor sequences in 12 expert players of a competitive fighting video game with 20 non-expert control participants. The participants were required to determine a sequence of button presses by trial and error and elaborate the learned sequence. The results showed that the expert game players were generally faster in visual-motor responses and kept improving at the later stage of learning compared with the control group. These results suggest that competitive fighting game experts have enhanced ability in sequence learning and imply that this can be generalized to the learning of arbitrary spatiotemporal structures of visual-motor behaviors.