Individual Differences in Vigilance Task Performance: Effects of Video Games and Sports Participation

Vigilance—the ability to detect critical signals over time—is vital in safety critical roles. Prior research links cognitive ability with improved vigilance, and both fast-paced video game participation and regular athletic activity have been independently associated with enhanced cognitive ability. This study tested whether those activities predict individual differences in vigilance performance. Data was pooled from multiple prior studies ( n = 269; 68 video game players, 201 non-players) where participants completed a 40-min vigilance task requiring successive discrimination of rare critical stimuli among neutral stimuli. Performance was measured by hit (correct detections) rate and false alarm (FA) rate. Participants self-reported engagement in action video games and organized sports. Two factorial ANOVAs designed 2 (Video game experience vs. non video game player) × 4 (Period of 40-min watch) revealed significant main effects of video game participation for both hit rate and false alarm rate where gamers outperformed non-gamers in both measures. No significant differences were found for sport participation. These results support the hypothesis that video game players exhibit superior vigilance. Implications could improve selection for high-stakes jobs and identifying causality within video game interventions to improve vigilance.