Cognitive Benefits of Gaming

Next Generation reports on an upcoming study to be conducted by PopCap games and the Games for Health Project. The two groups will be collaborating to discover what effect, if any, gaming has on keeping minds sharp. From the article: "The results of the study, which should be available in Spring of this year, are expected to reveal the role that digital games play in keeping minds sharp, especially those of the aging. The study will not focus on the benefits of any specific game, as the overall goal is to summarize past and present research. Expert opinions or public opinion may be gathered as well."

Comments

Research?

[bateleur]

From the article:
"We know good games activate minds [...] The goal of this effort is to establish a baseline of knowledge - you'd think it exists but it really doesn't."

So if I understand correctly they already know the results of their research, they just want the data to back their conclusion? Mmm... research! No wonder PopCap want to get involved.

Re:Getting the results they want

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, philosophy (Popper) of scientific discovery strongly recommends that a scientist should always try to disprove their hypothesis. This is b/c it is impossible to prove the hypothesis true for every case (assuming the number of cases is infinite or very large as is most often the case in science). Therefore, a scientist can only falsify a hypothesis and should endeavour to do so. Once a hypothesis is falsified, it should be revised or discarded.

Kuhnian philosophy suggests a strong inferential approach which suggests that a scientist can seek to 'prove' a hypothesis.

Scientific discovery is not a bunch of blind scientists running experiments to see what happens. Many (perhaps most) experiments are guided by hypotheses - not fishing expeditions.