Question

Does playing action video games provide more than just entertainment? The authors of the paper "ActionVideo-Game Experience Alters the Spatial Resolution of Vision" (Psychological Science [2007]: \(88-94\) ) concluded that spatial resolution, an important aspect of vision, is improved by playing action video games. They based this conclusion on data from an experiment in which 32 volunteers who had not played action video games were "equally and randomly divided between the experimental and control groups." Subjects in each group played a video game for 30 hours over a period of 6 weeks. Those in the experimental group played Unreal Tournament 2004 , an action video game. Those in the control group played Tetris, a game that does not require the user to process multiple objects at once. Explain why it was important for the researchers to randomly assign the subjects to the two groups.

Short answer

Random assignment is important in this research to ensure that any pre-experiment differences between participants do not affect the results. By randomly assigning participants to the control or experimental group, the researchers can confidently attribute any observed effects on spatial resolution to the difference in video games played, and not to any inherent advantage or bias in one group or the other.

Step-by-step solution

Introduction to Controlled Experiments

In a controlled experiment, two groups are formed: an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group is exposed to the variable under study, while the control group is not. The purpose of this design is to determine if the variable under study causes an effect.

Understanding Random Assignment

Random assignment is a process used in experiments to ensure each participant has an equal chance to be assigned to any group. It reduces bias and makes sure the groups are equivalent at the beginning of the study.

Significance of Random Assignment in this Study

In this study, it's crucial the subjects are randomly assigned to the two groups because this ensures that any difference in results (improvement in spatial resolution) is due to the action video game itself (Unreal Tournament 2004) and not due to some pre-existing difference between the groups. If the allocation of the participants was not random, it could have been possible that individuals with initially better spatial resolution or gaming abilities were disproportionately allotted to the experimental group, skewing the results.