Champion or Globetrotter? Investigating the Relationship between Global/Local Bias and Open-World Video Game Behaviour

Abstract

Despite research identifying relationships between attention, perception, and video game  behaviours, no studies have examined gameplay in relation to attentional breadth – whether one  sees “the forest” or “the trees”. Drawing on attentional breadth research, I conducted an  observational study investigating the relationship between global/local bias and gameplay  behaviour. I hypothesized that global bias, as calculated by global scores on the hierarchical  shapes task (HST), would be positively correlated with the breadth of game exploration in an  open-world computer game, as calculated by the range of activity attempts, area visits, and  character interactions. Twenty university students participated remotely by playing a 75-minute  screen-recorded computer game. Additionally, participants completed the HST, a computerized  cognitive task measuring naturally-occurring attentional breadth, followed by questionnaires  assessing extraversion, openness to experience, and attitudes of horizontal/vertical individualism  and collectivism. As predicted, there was a positive correlation between global bias and breadth  of explorative gameplay, but the correlation was weak and not statistically significant. However, after controlling for extraversion, openness to experience, video game experience, and attitudes  of horizontal/vertical individualism and collectivism, attentional breadth explained 10-20%  unique variability in participants’ global and local gameplay behaviours. These results suggest  that naturally-occurring attentional breadth can predict behaviour in an open-world video game,  independent of certain personality traits and social attitudes.