Increasing Cognitive Readiness Through Computer and Videogame–Based Training

In order to examine the cognitive readiness effects of training technologies, 123 participants watched emotional or tactical military training videos and then played a training videogame in a pre-post test between-subjects experiment. Emotional training video exposure reduced participants’ ability to suppress emotion and need to control one’s thoughts. After playing the videogame, participants exposed to the emotional video had higher metacognitive self-consciousness scores. Nationalism was negatively associated with emotion reappraisal for participants exposed to the emotional training video. However, patriotism was linked to higher emotion suppression scores. The results illustrate how media priming connects to short-term cognitive readiness outcomes and how trainee nationalism and patriotism modulate exposure effects.

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