Video Games and Higher Cognition

Over the past several decades, technological advancements in entertain- ment systems have given rise to a multibillion-dollar video gaming industry. Today, video games are one of the most ubiquitous forms of entertainment around the world, with an estimated 2.7 billion video game players world- wide (Statista, 2020). In the United States, 65% of adults play video games, spending an average of 4.8 hours per week playing computer, console, or mobile video games (Entertainment Software Association, 2019). Given the large amount of time individuals throughout the population spend playing video games, scientists have sought to examine the effects of video game exposure on a host of human behaviors and abilities. Such inquiries have spanned the entirety of psychological sciences, from educational psychology (e.g., Clark et al., 2016; Mayo, 2009), to clinical psychology (e.g., Biagianti & Vinogradov, 2013; Eichenbaum et al., 2015), to social psychology (Gentile et al., 2009; Greitemeyer & Osswald, 2011), to the focus of this chapter, cognitive psychology. Within cognitive psychology, the majority of work to date has examined the impact of video game play in domains such as execu- tive functions (e.g., inhibition, cognitive control, selective attention), cogni- tive flexibility (e.g., multitasking, task switching), and perceptual capabilities (e.g., peripheral vision, multisensory integration; Bavelier et al., 2018, 2012). Yet, a growing body of research has focused on what might be considered “higher level cognition,” in particular, intelligence, problem solving, and cre- ativity. These latter three domains will be the focus of this chapter.