The Plurality of Perception: Gaming Cognition as a Perceptual Ecology
This paper argues that video game cognition is best understood as a perceptual ecology—a shifting relationship between sensory input, interpretation, and action—rather than a fixed or singular process. Drawing on computational, dynamic, embodied/extended, and narrative models of cognition, it examines the perceptual strategies players employ across contexts. Computational cognition treats perception as symbolic encoding; dynamic cognition frames it as part of a real-time action–feedback loop; embodied/extended cognition shows how tools, bodies, and environments extend perception; and narrative cognition reveals how meaning is filtered through player identities.
Case studies from Vandal Hearts, Them’s Fightin’ Herds, Oblivion, and Undertale illustrate that perception in games is neither wholly static nor wholly fluid, but shifts according to player familiarity, goals, and play style. Examples such as blindfolded speedrunning highlight how players navigate and combine perceptual modes adaptively. The thesis holds that perception is not merely input to cognition but an active partner within it. Framing gaming cognition as a perceptual ecology accounts for both stable learned patterns and emergent play, offering a model for how players see, hear, and feel their way through interactive worlds.