Neuroscience
Just 15 minutes playing a violent video game can lend a negative bias to the way we interpret people's facial expressions.
Steven Kirsh and Jeffrey Mounts at SUNY-Guneseo in New York asked 197 students to play either 15 minutes of the violent House of the Dead 2, or 15 minutes of the game your Nan would approve of far more, Kayak Extreme.
After playing the video game, the students looked at 60 faces that gradually morphed over 2.4 seconds from a neutral expression into either a happy or an angry expression. The students' task was indicate as quickly as possible whether the face was turning angry or happy. Typically on this kind of task, people are far quicker at recognising a happy face – a phenomenon that has been dubbed the 'happy face advantage'.
The students who played the kayaking game showed the expected happy face advantage – they were 95ms faster on average at recognising when a face was morphing into a happy expression compared with an angry expression. By contrast, the students who had played House of the Dead 2, only showed a 2.5 ms advantage for happy expressions. This difference between the groups held even after the researchers controlled for the effects of the games on emotional factors like frustration and enjoyment.
The researchers said the violent game may have predisposed the students towards recognising threatening emotions. “This attentional bias may then increase the likelihood of acting aggressively by priming aggressive scripts or by limiting the processing of information which could reduce the likelihood of aggression,” they warned.
__________________________________
Kirsch, S.J. & Mounts, J.R.W. (2007). Violent video game play impacts facial emotion recognition. Aggressive Behaviour, 33, 353-358.
Link to recent Guardian opinion piece on psychological effects of violent video games.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Effects Of A Violent Video Game Depend On Whether You're Superman Or The Joker
After Aaron Alexis shot dead 12 people at the Navy Yard in Washington DC in September, media outlets were quick to highlight his reported enjoyment of violent video games. To many, this was just the latest example of how violent games can foster real-life...
- It Matters How Much Blood Video Games Have In Them
Hype surrounding the global release of the gangster-themed video game Grand Theft Auto IV has renewed the long-standing debate over whether violent games make players more aggressive. Now Christopher Barlett and colleagues have provided a fresh angle...
- Why Moving Faces Are Easier To Recognise
Psychologists have previously shown that moving faces are easier to recognise than a static image of a face. Karen Lander and Lewis Chuang at the University of Manchester sought to find out why. In a first experiment, 48 psychology students viewed degraded...
- This Is My Idea Of Fun Monkeys Playing Video Games
Swinging in the back yard Pull up in your fast car Whistling my name Open up a beer and Say get over here And play a video game Video Games ------Lana Del Rey from Fig.1, Hosokawa & Watanabe (2012). It's you, it's you, it's all for...
- Is It Real Or Is It "tactical Ops: Assault On Terror?"
The Neurocritic did not find any new media coverage for the topic of Sunday's posting on Quotidian Virtual Violence. Two speculations on the lack of media hoopla were (1) no press releases from the journal (Human Brain Mapping) or the authors'...
Neuroscience
Violent video games slow our processing of happy faces
Just 15 minutes playing a violent video game can lend a negative bias to the way we interpret people's facial expressions.Steven Kirsh and Jeffrey Mounts at SUNY-Guneseo in New York asked 197 students to play either 15 minutes of the violent House of the Dead 2, or 15 minutes of the game your Nan would approve of far more, Kayak Extreme.
After playing the video game, the students looked at 60 faces that gradually morphed over 2.4 seconds from a neutral expression into either a happy or an angry expression. The students' task was indicate as quickly as possible whether the face was turning angry or happy. Typically on this kind of task, people are far quicker at recognising a happy face – a phenomenon that has been dubbed the 'happy face advantage'.
The students who played the kayaking game showed the expected happy face advantage – they were 95ms faster on average at recognising when a face was morphing into a happy expression compared with an angry expression. By contrast, the students who had played House of the Dead 2, only showed a 2.5 ms advantage for happy expressions. This difference between the groups held even after the researchers controlled for the effects of the games on emotional factors like frustration and enjoyment.
The researchers said the violent game may have predisposed the students towards recognising threatening emotions. “This attentional bias may then increase the likelihood of acting aggressively by priming aggressive scripts or by limiting the processing of information which could reduce the likelihood of aggression,” they warned.
__________________________________
Kirsch, S.J. & Mounts, J.R.W. (2007). Violent video game play impacts facial emotion recognition. Aggressive Behaviour, 33, 353-358.
Link to recent Guardian opinion piece on psychological effects of violent video games.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Effects Of A Violent Video Game Depend On Whether You're Superman Or The Joker
After Aaron Alexis shot dead 12 people at the Navy Yard in Washington DC in September, media outlets were quick to highlight his reported enjoyment of violent video games. To many, this was just the latest example of how violent games can foster real-life...
- It Matters How Much Blood Video Games Have In Them
Hype surrounding the global release of the gangster-themed video game Grand Theft Auto IV has renewed the long-standing debate over whether violent games make players more aggressive. Now Christopher Barlett and colleagues have provided a fresh angle...
- Why Moving Faces Are Easier To Recognise
Psychologists have previously shown that moving faces are easier to recognise than a static image of a face. Karen Lander and Lewis Chuang at the University of Manchester sought to find out why. In a first experiment, 48 psychology students viewed degraded...
- This Is My Idea Of Fun Monkeys Playing Video Games
Swinging in the back yard Pull up in your fast car Whistling my name Open up a beer and Say get over here And play a video game Video Games ------Lana Del Rey from Fig.1, Hosokawa & Watanabe (2012). It's you, it's you, it's all for...
- Is It Real Or Is It "tactical Ops: Assault On Terror?"
The Neurocritic did not find any new media coverage for the topic of Sunday's posting on Quotidian Virtual Violence. Two speculations on the lack of media hoopla were (1) no press releases from the journal (Human Brain Mapping) or the authors'...