| Literature DB >> 29141019 |
Athanasios V Kokkinakis1,2, Peter I Cowling2, Anders Drachen2, Alex R Wade1.
Abstract
Hundreds of millions of people play intellectually-demanding video games every day. What does individual performance on these games tell us about cognition? Here, we describe two studies that examine the potential link between intelligence and performance in one of the most popular video games genres in the world (Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas: MOBAs). In the first study, we show that performance in the popular MOBA League of Legends' correlates with fluid intelligence as measured under controlled laboratory conditions. In the second study, we also show that the age profile of performance in the two most widely-played MOBAs (League of Legends and DOTA II) matches that of raw fluid intelligence. We discuss and extend previous videogame literature on intelligence and videogames and suggest that commercial video games can be useful as 'proxy' tests of cognitive performance at a global population level.Entities:
Mesh:
Year: 2017 PMID: 29141019 PMCID: PMC5687598 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0186621
Source DB: PubMed Journal: PLoS One ISSN: 1932-6203 Impact factor: 3.240
Player numbers and ages (in years) for the four games in our analyses.
| N | Minimum | Maximum | Mean | Std. Deviation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BF3 | 8743 | 13 | 40 | 23.67 | 6.53 |
| Destiny | 1669 | 13 | 40 | 24.18 | 6.32 |
| Dota 2 | 286 | 13 | 40 | 23.11 | 4.02 |
| LoL | 17861 | 13 | 40 | 20.49 | 5.07 |
Non-parametric correlations between variables measured in Study 1.
| WASI II Raw Score | League of Legends Ranking | Rotation Span Score | Symmetry Span Score | Operation Span Score | Mind in the Eyes Test Score | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spearman's rho | WASI II Raw Score | Correlation Coefficient | 1.000 | .071 | .082 | |||
| Sig. (1-tailed) | . | .302 | .275 | |||||
| N | 56 | 56 | 52 | 54 | 56 | 55 | ||
| League of Legends Ranking | Correlation Coefficient | 1.000 | .117 | .025 | -.096 | |||
| Sig. (1-tailed) | . | .199 | .427 | .242 | ||||
| N | 56 | 56 | 52 | 54 | 56 | 55 | ||
| Rotation Span Score | Correlation Coefficient | . | 1.000 | .198 | .050 | |||
| Sig. (1-tailed) | .031 | . | .001 | .080 | .365 | |||
| N | 52 | 52 | 52 | 50 | 52 | 51 | ||
| Symmetry Span Score | Correlation Coefficient | .117 | 1.000 | .197 | .050 | |||
| Sig. (1-tailed) | .199 | . | .077 | .361 | ||||
| N | 54 | 54 | 50 | 54 | 54 | 53 | ||
| Operation Span Score | Correlation Coefficient | .071 | .025 | .198 | .197 | 1.000 | -.131 | |
| Sig. (1-tailed) | .302 | .427 | .080 | .077 | . | .171 | ||
| N | 56 | 56 | 52 | 54 | 56 | 55 | ||
| Mind in the Eyes Test Score | Correlation Coefficient | .082 | -.096 | .050 | .050 | -.131 | 1.000 | |
| Sig. (1-tailed) | .275 | .242 | .365 | .361 | .171 | . | ||
| N | 55 | 55 | 51 | 53 | 55 | 55 | ||
The Rotation Span scores were weakly but significantly correlated with Rank (rs = .26, p < .05).
** Indicates correlations significant at p < .01 levels;
* Indicates correlations significant at p < .05 levels (1-tailed).
Fig 1Cross correlations between variables of interest.
The leading diagonal shows the distribution of the data. Numbers above the diagonal show the non-parametric cross correlation coefficient. Scattergrams of the data with best fit lines and error limits are shown below the leading diagonal. There is a moderately-sized and highly significant correlation between WASI-II Matrices and Rank (rs = .44, p = .001) and a weak but significant correlation between Rank and Rotation Span score with r = .26, p < .05. The correlations between Rank and OSPAN and MITE task scores were not significantly correlated with with rs = 0.3, p = .43 and r = -.01, p = .242 respectively.
Fig 2Age profiles of MMR in four different games.
Three age groups for each game are plotted: (1) 13–21, (2) 22–27 and (3) 28 years an over. In two popular ‘First Person Shooter’ games (Battlefield 3 and Destiny), performance decreases monotonically with age following a ‘high, high, low’ profile. In comparison, two of the most popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games exhibit a ‘low, high, low’ profile suggesting that performance peaks in the mid-20s. Distributions whose boxplot notches do not overlap are different at p < .05.