Do video game players have superior visual attention skills? Refer to the Journal of Articles in Support of the Null Hypothesis (Vol. 6, 2009) study of video game players, Exercise 9.22 (p. 478). In a second experiment, the two groups of male psychology students—32 video game players (VGP group) and 28 nonplayers (NVGP group)—

were subjected to the inattentional blindness test. This test gauges students’ ability to detect the appearance of unexpected or task-irrelevant objects in their visual field.

The students were required to silently count the number of times moving block letters touch the sides of a display LO4 window while focusing on a small square in the center of the window. Within each group, half the students were assigned a task with 4 moving letters (low load) and half were assigned a task with 8 moving letters (high load). At the end of the task, the difference between the student’s count of letter touches and the actual count (recorded as a percentage error) was determined. The data on percentage error were subjected to an ANOVA for a factorial design, with Group (VGP or NVGP) as one factor and Load (low or high) as the other factor. The results are summarized in the accompanying table.

Source df F p-Value Group 1 0.58 .449 Load 1 35.04 6 .0005 Group * Load 1 1.37 .247 Error 56 Total 59

a. Interpret the F-test for Group * Load interaction.
Use a = .10.

b. Interpret the F-test for Group main effect. Use a = .10.

c. Interpret the F-test for Load main effect. Use a = .10.

d. Based on your answers to parts a–c, do you believe video game players perform better on the inattentional blindness test than non-video game players?