Short-Term Arcade-Action Video Gaming Enhances Working Memory Precision
Working-memory (WM) precision depends on top-down control by dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Whether a brief session of action video-game play can sharpen this control, and which neural processes mediate any benefit, remains unknown. Thirty-four adults were randomly assigned to 30 min of fast-paced gaming (Snail Mail; Experiment) or time-matched cartoon viewing (Control). Delayed continuous-report precision and 128-channel resting EEG were collected before and after the intervention. Absolute recall error fell in the Experiment group (p < .001) but rose in Controls (p = .005); the groups did not differ at baseline (p = .164) yet the Experiment group outperformed Control at post-test (p < .001). In the EEG subset (N = 30), gaming selectively increased high-alpha (10-13 Hz) power over left dlPFC (AFF7h; p = .041), an effect absents in Controls and significant between groups (p = .010). Across participants, the magnitude of this prefrontal alpha gain predicted the improvement in WM precision (r = .53, p = .0025), whereas concurrent flattening of the global 1/f slope was unrelated (|r| < .24, p > .21). A single, ecologically realistic gaming session therefore yields measurable enhancement of mnemonic precision together with local up-regulation of dlPFC-centered alpha oscillations, identifying a plausible cortical mechanism for rapid, low-cost cognitive plasticity.