Evidence for the advantages of assessing action video game proficiency in addition to gaming experience

Investigations into whether playing action video games (AVGs) benefit other tasks, such as driving, have traditionally focused on gaming experience (i.e., hours played). A potential problem with this approach is that AVG experience only partially indexes the cognitive skills developed via gaming, which are presumably the source of other task benefits. Thus, a focus on experience, instead of gaming proficiency (i.e., skill level), may account for inconsistencies in existing literature. We investigated whether AVG experience or proficiency best predicts performance in simulated driving. We hypothesised that proficiency would better predict driving performance (speed control, lane maintenance, spare cognitive capacity) than experience. One-hundred-and-sixteen participants drove in a simulator and played an AVG (Quake III Arena). Proficiency predicted all aspects of driving performance, while experience only predicted lane maintenance. These findings highlight the benefits of measuring AVG proficiency, with implications for the video games literature, driving safety and the transfer of skill-based learning.