The different Screen scanning pattern between novice and heavy game user groups
The present study investigated the spatial scanning patterns of computer monitor across game expertise. To this goal, we compared the scanning pattern of two groups: novice gamer group who has little experience of game playing and heavy game user group who played MMORPG at least for 3 years. Participants executed an icon-like detection task consisting of 25 squares on the full screen. We measured their response times (RTs) for each cell and compared them. The scanning patterns were largely different between the two groups. The novice group scanned monitor in order of the center, left, upper, lower, and right side of monitor. Where as, the heavy game user group scanned it in order of the center, upper, left, right and lower side. The difference between two group indicates that game playing modify perceptually the scanning pattern of monitor and we need to design the graphical user interface of game more in favor of novice perceptual scanning pattern to lower entry barriers of game.