Action video games sharpen mind

A new study reveals that playing action video games like Call of Duty and Unreal Tournament 2004 can boost learning. The research shows that the gamer’s improvement from playing video games stays with them even after a year.

According to Daphne Bavelier, a research professor in brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, "Prior research by our group and others has shown that action gamers excel at many tasks. In this new study, we show they excel because they are better learners, and they become better learners by playing the fast-paced action games."

Bevelier added that our brain predicts things that will happen next. To make accurate predictions, our brain build models or templates of the world.

"The better the template, the better the performance. And now we know playing action video game actually fosters better templates."

Ohio State professor Brad J. Bushman, who studies the effect of violent video games on players, the research paper is good but he does not understand why it needs to be a violent, action game.

Bushman added, "I believe the findings. What I fear, however, is that people will use such findings to justify playing violent action games."

"I would love to see studies test three types of video games: (1) violent action, (2) nonviolent action, and (3) non-action. Action and violence are confounded in many video games. My hypothesis is that it is the action that produces the learning rather than the violence. The key is to develop exciting, action-packed nonviolent games."

For Bavelier’s study, they compared the performance of 10 gamers playing Call of Duty against players who play Restaurant Empire and Sims 2. They played their games for 50 hours over nine weeks. The result of the study shows that the action gamers outperformed the non-action gamers.

The full findings of the study can be found on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this week’s edition.