Study finds gamers no better at dialing, driving

DURHAM, N.C. — Pairing cellphones and driving is a skill people, by and large, have not mastered, according to accident data and numerous studies, such as those that equate cellphone use with drunken driving.

But what about people who play video games, who have been found to have better attention and perception compared to the general population?

Sarah Donohue, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University, thought if anyone could do a good job of talking and driving, it would be gamers.

Turns out she was wrong.

In a study published in the journal Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, Donohue and her colleagues examined how well people did three primary tasks while also performing a second task: answering Trivial Pursuit questions over a speakerphone. “It’s not completely analogous to a cellphone conversation,” says Donohue. “But it taps into many of the same mental processes.”

One of the primary tasks was taking a simple computer test, similar to a moving-objects test at an eye doctor’s office. The second was finding hidden pictures, as in a children’s puzzle book. The third was driving on a simulated course. The researchers evaluated how people performed the primary tasks and whether their performance suffered when also “on the phone.”

The researchers then compared the performance of gamers and nongamers.

Both groups were equally bad at trying to take the test or solve the puzzle while talking over the speakerphone.

The gamers, unsurprisingly, did better at the driving-only task, likely because it echoed the feel of many live-action video games.

But once the phone was thrown into the mix, their driving also got worse. Seemingly, no one is immune.