Keywords
Video games; video game player; non-video game player; subjective scale; perceptual abilities; reaction speed; spatial abilities; objective measure; confidence; confidence bias; self-report survey; first-person-shooter; aim-trainer; AimLabs
Abstract
Researchers have been debating whether video games influence our cognitive and perceptual processing abilities. There are two notable gaps in the video game literature, which are (1) the lack of objective performance measures and (2) not addressing participants’ confidence ratings. This study addressed both by examining (1) the relationship between confidence and performance scores, (2) changes in confidence after gameplay, and (3) the relationship between self-reported play hours and AimLabs performance. A mixed-methods approach was used, combining AimLabs data with pre- and post-game confidence ratings. Participants were grouped (high, medium, low) based on reported weekly play hours and three perceptual tasks were used (Deary-Liewald, Eriksen Flanker, and Card Rotation). Results indicated that the high groups rated their confidence far higher than those in the other groups. No significant correlation was found between the confidence scores and the perceptual tasks, but there was a weak-moderate positive relationship found between objective performance in AimLabs and perceptual task performance. There was also a difference between the groups when comparing the AimLabs speed performances, the high hours group reacting fastest and the low hours group reacting slowest. These results provide supporting evidence that objective performance could potentially be a better indicator of video game players' perceptual abilities compared to subjective scales.
Thesis Completion Year
2025
Thesis Completion Semester
Summer
Thesis Chair
Sims, Valerie
College
College of Sciences
Department
Psychology
Thesis Discipline
Psychology
Language
English
Access Status
Open Access
Length of Campus Access
None
Campus Location
Orlando (Main) Campus
STARS Citation
Valdes-Vega, Laura, "Using Different Measures To Explore Confidence Bias In Video Games" (2025). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 384.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/hut2024/384
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