Good news, action video gamer fans. Playing games like Call of Duty, Assassins Creed and BioShock are actually good for your brain.
A new study, done by researchers at the University of Rochester, shows that regularly playing such video games not only boosts the learning of in-game skills, but also boosts learning in the real world, too.
When we're doing something like listening to a conversation, driving or performing some other task, our brains are constantly predicting what comes next, creating a sort of "template" that helps us learn responses to certain situations (for example, while driving, we think ahead so that we know to turn on our signal before turning).
"The better the template, the better the performance," says Daphne Bavelier, a research professor at the university. "And now we know playing action video game actually fosters better templates."
The first experiment compared volunteers, some regular action video game players and others who did not play action video games. Researchers asked both groups to visually identify a series of patterns. As expected, the action video game players did better, and performed faster, than those who don't play action video games.
In their second experiment, researchers wanted to determine if playing action video games actually boosts learning. So they started with volunteers and subjected them to the same test.
Then they split the volunteers into two groups: one group played action video games for around 50 hours over nine weeks, while the other played non-action video games, such as The Sims.
After nine weeks, researchers tested both groups again. The action video gamers showed improved learning skills over the non-action video gamers.
"When they began the perceptual learning task, action video gamers were indistinguishable from non-action gamers; they didn't come to the task with a better template," says Bavelier. "Instead, they developed better templates for the task, much, much faster showing an accelerated learning curve."
This quicker learning curve also lasted: when researchers tested volunteers a year later, those trained with action video games still performed better in tests.
So what's happening here? Action video gaming seems to build up the brain's ability to create learning templates faster. Translated into the real world, with the previous example of driving, playing action video games could result in a faster reaction time, perhaps when a car pulls out in front of you.
It seems that action video games are good for you, particularly when considering previous research that showed playing these games also improves eye-hand coordination. In an age where video games are often criticized for their effects on players, finding out our favorite pastime is good for us is definitely good news.
Among all the video games, online word games can be particularly effective improving mental ability. Playing Unscrambled Words, Text Twists, and Words with Friends can help you stay ahead of your competition. It's IQ-boosting, super fun, and entertaining. If your kid plays this a lot, then he or she is learning how to spell better, improving their memory, extending vocabulary, and developing problem-solving skills
[Photo Credit: Activision]
