Slashdot Mirror
Violent Video Games Can Improve Vision
Ponca City, We love you writes "According to a new study, people who played fighting games on their PCs became up to a 58 percent better at perceiving fine contrast differences, an important aspect of eyesight. The breakthrough is significant because it was previously thought that the ability to notice even very small changes in shades of grey against a uniform background could not be improved. Contrast sensitivity is the primary limiting factor in how well one sees. Volunteers in the study played intensively for 50 hours over nine weeks with either Unreal Tournament 2004 and Call of Duty 2, and the results were compared with another group who played The Sims 2, which is richly visual but does not require as much hand-eye coordination. The improvements lasted for months after game play stopped. The new finding suggests action video games could be used as training devices as a useful complement to eye-correction techniques, since gaming may teach the brain's visual cortex to make better use of the information it receives."
You've got to be able to see well to pwn enemies with headshots and get first post!
Ok, so playing violent video games makes you a serial killer, and improves your eyesight thus making you superhuman?
Just wait until they add laser beams on top of gamers heads!!!
We are effing doomed!
I have a serious problem with eye strain, even when using nice monitors. I'm not alone. Because of this, I have a hard time believing that there is a net benefit in terms of overall eye health. Doing visual-based puzzles or learning how to paint are probably far healthier ways to increase perception of fine contrast differences.
Also, does anyone have any idea why contrast sensitivity would be a particularly important thing to improve?
I find that when playing 3D FPS games for too long, my eyes start having a hard time with depth. When playing the game, the focus point is the same for everything. But when I look out into the room or the real world, there is a kind of shock and discomfort until I get adjusted again.
But they are probably right about the ability to maintain good eyesight. The fact is, we strain to see all the fine details of things in the distance ... to shoot it or not be killed by it. Eyes are muscles like others and if you don't use them, they get weaker. My laptop display is 1920x1200 and I wish it were finer... most people are like "you can read that?!"
Of course I only read the summary, but why use the word violent? It sounds like this has nothing to do with violence but fast paced complex spatial reaction.
Where are are you correlation != causation people? This has nothing to do with the violence. Go mod Sims 2 so that you can grow a serial murder/rapist, and I bet you won't improve your vision. This title could be misleading.
Based upon this definition and explanation of contrast sensitivity, it may be the horrible lighting that many FPS maps have (I'm looking at you, OAs) that make games particularly valuable for increasing contrast sensitivity. However, it seems that if that were true, the explanation given in the summary for why the Sims isn't as valuable as Call of Duty could be incomplete.
I would love to see a comparison of different maps within the same game -- one with excellent lighting and no dark corners, and the other with shoddy lighting. I'm willing to bet that there will be a measurable difference.
As I remember it, Sims tends to be more brightly colored, with a higher contrast among people and objects. UT and COD typically have people hiding in shadows, so you have to learn to pay attention to low-contrast details. This is a horrible conclusion and the authors should be shot.
Unless the authors actually made this conclusion and it's the summary that's wrong, not that that ever happens.
Someone who's played counterstrike a lot is physically conditioned to react as soon as possible to movement (counter terrorists coming around a corner).
Is it also news that someone who runs a lot may be really good at running ?
...some interesting results were generated when the group that had been playing "Unreal Tournament 2004" and "Call of Duty 2" then started playing "The Sims 2". Remarked one researcher, "the carnage was truely remarkable".
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
go to any video game website, try to find some meaningful discussion there related to the bigger issues of life.
To find such a discussion, shouldn't you search in a place about the real world?
Also, http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=913782
I wonder how much these subjects were paid to play these games for 50 hours a week? Where do i sign up for these game studies? Although it would really suck if i was assigned to the sims group...
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Test subjects who played FPS games did better than those who played sim-type games on several tests, including speed and accuracy of sorting an ounce of pot mixed with seeds on the backs of ZZ Top cardboard record jackets.
Yes, it will improve your vision. Because you introduced rape into an innocent game, you will be spending your nights running from Jack Thompson, thus drastically increasing the amount of times you need to differentiate between dark contrasts, thus increasing your fine contrast sensitivity.
Pfft forget video games, my parents raised me in a cave from the age of 5 to improve my vision in preparation for the inevitable apocalypse. No outside light whatsoever.
We upgraded the cave 3 years ago for broadband, had to get a box for the router because the blinking lights burned my sisters eyes.
I must agree with this. I have eye strain and playing fps helps exercise my eyes. They don't get strained as much as long as I play regularly.
What about the other direction? A lot of these people you are complaining about may never have had any of these skills, and it's only through violent games that they have learned the logic of tactics, teamwork, command and control. Also, anybody that has learned tactics and teamwork is halfway to learning other social skills. Social skills are nothing more than tactics necessary to navigating the minefield of human interaction.
Not only that, but you contradict yourself. You say "they dull your sense of logic and reason", and then talk about "the inexorable logic of tactic, teamwork, command and control" being a central part of those people's language, all of which require logic and reason.
I think you need to go back and re-think your argument, and be more precise in your language.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
Take that macho man randy savage, ahmm I mean idiot anti-violent game parents.
For a few years back when I was into playing more FPS games, I was able to react and perceive things around me in the real world and work far better than before I'd played them. This is also the case now - several years after. It was particulary effective when driving at night and at spotting speed traps far away in the distance which my passengers would only notice a couple of hundred metres later.
If I had the time now, I'd play them just to hone those skills again.
They had the same study out in 1983. Watching small objects dart around improves hand-eye coordination, who-da thunk it? The only difference is putting the yellow journalism label "violent video games" on it and getting Slashdot front page coverage.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Maybe this is why that masturbation hurts vision thing never came true for me.
Shhh. Silence. All right thinking people know that you can only learn teamwork from real-world violence and violence simulations. Go team!
I'm not much of a video game player myself, but I rather suspect that most people who do play video games regularly, especially teenagers with lots of spare time, rack up more than fifty hours in nine weeks; that's about five and a half hours a week.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
According to other studies, violent games make people violent.
Why believe this study and not the others?
Those games are pretty slow. UT2004 is kinda fast but still not up the twitch action in Quake 3 (or Quake 2 for that matter).
Back when I played those games my vision and reflexes were enhanced very noticeably. While driving especially I noticed that I could see even the tiniest thing moving or various things that caught be attention. My favorite trick was to grab flies straight out of the air with my hands. It always impressed people. When I stopped playing as much I pretty much lost that ability completely after a few months.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
all will lead to discussions of themes such as family, dignity, respect, honor, defeat, tragedy, loss, heartache, recovery, illness, injury, legend, inquiry, investigation, history, politics, society, and other larger issues.
people talking about violent video games are reduced to chimpanzee-like sqwakings about their latest giblet fest, screaming from the tree tops of the ladder board, that they have defeated the betas, killed their children, and impregnated their women monkeys.
this is what we are teaching our children. to behave like animals.
Those are first person shooters, not fighting games. Fighting games are things like Street Fighter or Soul Calibur, not to be confused with beat 'em ups which are things like Double Dragon or Final Fight.
Mada mada dane.
I wonder if this is why I can't see 3D effects in movies, TV shows, etc. because I played too many 3D games with my bare eyes. I recalled I used to be able to see them when I was little (e.g., Captain EO at Disneyland) and before 3D games existed. I watched those three SuperBowl TV ads, Chuck 3D episode, and recently saw two 3D shows at Disneyland's California Adventure. Is anyone noticing this too or just me? :( I also can't see those stereograms and those never worked.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Do they improve peripheral vision? Just sayin'..
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I'd say you must be knew here for feeding the trolls but how the hell does one say that to a 3digit?
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
correlation does not equal causation god dammit! :p
I can see all the Grues now.
Task Mangler
Fuck off. Same thing you say to any prick.
You mad
Staring at a flat screen does little for depth perception which is seriously underutilized in such a situation. Although interestingly, ones ability to use parallax to calculate spatial depth, rather than stereo vision, must be massively enhanced, since this is the other way we mentally process our spatial environment.
So yes, a FPS gamer may do a lot better with depth perception if he/she suddenly lost one eye.
To give an example, my father was perplexed by the extremely convex side mirrors on his new truck (yes the "objects in this mirror are closer than they appear" kind), which give a great wide field of view yet he would complain the fish eye perspective meant he couldn't judge depth correctly (and this was his excuse for almost backing into things).
So I climb into the cab and start backing the thing up like I've done it for years.
He pointed out my childhood and adolescence saturated with 2D screens helped me have zero problems, where he was very much an outdoorsman from a young age.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
With as many FPSs as I've played I should have freakin' x-ray vision by now! I'm staring very hard at the girl across the street...but...OH MAH GAWD IT'S A MAN! Turn it off! Turn it off!! I'll never play another FPS for as long as I live.
See better or die. Simple.
Almost every week in /. there is an story about the supposed benefits of some weird aspect of gaming.
To me this implies that /. editors feel guilty of loving games because they really know they're damaging their body (tired eyes, overweight, talking incoherences, etc.) so need every possible excuse to continue with the addiction.
Clearly, this works because you're selling your eternal soul to satan by ritualistic virtual murder in return for slightly better eye sight!
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
That surely only matters if you're too retarded to enlarge your font size (which you can do even on windoze nowadays, though by default windoze does some dumb shit compared to linux/x11 or macosx, you have to reconfigure it).
I can't figure out how to make the menu fonts any bigger without breaking everything else.
For instance, if you use AppleDisplayScaleFactor, raster images get uglified and the mouse pointer breaks. Back in windows (XP), the I could just go through the display settings and "use large fonts" (and extra large, I think. In factors of roughly root 2) and all it would break annoyingly frequently, but still only occasionally, was the odd modal dialog's text flow in a usually still usable way.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Had a similar experience back in college. I was playing about 2 hours a day of UT2k4 with instagib activated and fencing (the kind with swords) for 4 hours a week. My reflexes were noticeably faster than my compatriots, and I had a much easier time picking out and recognizing small details. The place that it was most apparent was actually in my entomology class when we had to go out and collect insects. I had an easier time acquiring specimens simply because I noticed them when others didn't. The faster reflexes also helped me catch some of the more evasive ones. So yeah, if ya ever take an entomology class, the videogames do help.
"Operating systems suck: you're better off using only the BIOS" --trainsaw.com
A perfect case in point of gamers not having any social skills, I think.
-:sigma.SB
WARN
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
If we want an accurate headline it should be: "Violent Video games can Improve One Aspect of Vision"
Mod parent to match grandparent, at least. UT2004 was tweaked right out of the box in numerous ways to stave off visibility problems. Characters were brightly-colored (and, get this, had corona-style "heads-up" lights attached to their models), maps were well-lit. and all the game's weapon fire was quite visible. User mods, especially for competitive purposes, furthered this by applying FLUORESCENT colors to all player models (screaming blue/red body, neon green head, clearly visible even in the darkest corners of maps). The ONLY way to be stealthy was to stay out of the opponent's line-of-sight (and, slightly off-topic, stealth was even more difficult because competitive players were as active in listening for their opponents' footsteps and gunshots as they were in visually scanning for targets).
Really, rapid movement aside, targets in UT2004 were just as visible as "targets" in The Sims. It's just that nothing in the Sims is going to end your session within milliseconds of appearing onscreen. Many things in UT2004 COULD kill you within a second of appearing onscreen (Shock combos, folks armed with a headshot gun, close-range flak at a corner, shieldgun insta-kills...) That's not even to say a word about the InstaGib crowd (imagine playing CTF in a big map where everyone is loaded out with infinite ammo in one-shot-to-the-toe-kills-you guns. Yes, some people were good enough to get the entire way across a crowded map that way).
As it happens, I was actually a rather good UT2004 player; I'd logged thoussands of hours of play by the time I moved on to greener pastures. Sometime near the end there, I was invited skeet shooting with a friend. It was the first time I'd picked up a firearm (or slugthrower of any sort) in over 15 years; my only other experience had been firing a few dozen pellets from a friend's BB gun as a kid. Once the gentlemen (really, they WERE polite rural gentry-folk) at the firing range had given me the run-down on firearm safety and on handling the little 20 gauge, I walked out to the range and immediately pegged 3/4 of the pigeons two rounds in a row, and 22/25 the third round. Now, that's not Olympic quality or anything, and I'm still no world-class shot, but I can DEFINITELY attest that I engaged (and continue to develop) some of the same neural paths in lining up the pigeons that I did in tracking targets in UT2004 (Shock Combo, anyone?)
UT2004 remains my favorite FPS game, in particular due to its emphasis on fast movement, its blitzkrieg-yet-solid strategic play, and its presentation of rapidly-moving targets. I can definitely see how playing the game could teach better visual skills if such a thing is at all possible; it CERTAINLY increased my hand-eye coordination.
...I'd start dying my hair some non-grayish color.
"Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power." -- James Madison
I wonder what effect Touhou Project would have on your contrast sensibility...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHmzO2RI1fs
But... the future refused to change.
I've already seen that
- Videogames improve vision
- Masturbation is good for your prostate
- Drinking beer is good for your stomach.
Now the only thing missing is to read that pizza makes you thinner!
You've got to be a complete idiot to post such an article. Yes, a game must be violent to help your eyesight. A new low for Slashdot.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
I think they mean that video-games help you to get better results from what you see using some "software algorithms" (i.e. using interpolation or extrapolation, the brain can make more accurate predictions about something).
The problem is that while the brain can compensate "bad input" with software post-processing, it cannot outperform another human, who has perfect vision (thus their eyes generate "good input" for the brain - so there is no need for post-processing).
The saddest poem
If you don't like the dumbed down version, the actual article can be found here. It is quite readable.
And it is a crappy summary - as usual. Violence is not even mentioned in the article.
Yeah yeah.. anecdotal evidence etc.
My brother and I have the best eyes/vision in our family - we're also the only gamers and have been playing fast-paced action games (mostly FPS) for very long - we both also don't need glasses, like everyone else in our family ;)
I used to need glasses as a kid, now, 15 years of online gaming later I've had 20/20 vision for over 8 years.
Of course, that doesn't prove anything, my eyes could've just naturally corrected themselves. Either way though one thing is for sure, staring at a monitor or TV didn't make my eyesite worse like my grandparents always told me it would ;)
Honestly though I wonder if my eyes ever were bad. When I was a kid and told I needed glasses my eye checks were always at commercial opticians. Eye tests over the last few years were always done by impartial eye doctors as part of my job giving me free eye checkups because I work with computers. I wonder if the original diagnosis of me requiring glasses was simply a good old case of conflict of interest in that of course commcercial opticians are going to tell me I need glasses, because then they get to sell me some! The impartial eye doctors however had nothing to gain either way because he wasn't also selling me glasses so just gave me the truth.
All those shades of "next-gen" grey really do have a benefit! And here I thought developers were just being lazy with the color palette. I'm sorry developers! Keep on preparing us for the upcoming apocalypse
...at least the counter acts the effect of too much p0rn
You're repeating his joke. Go make up your own :(
Or did you drop your jokes while posting that and are now looking for them?
I thought hey meant 50 hours a week at first. They aren't even talking an hour a day here. Every kid I know plays video games more intensively than this.
Everybody seems to think I'm lazy I don't mind, I think they're crazy
Granted using the word violent is sensational, but the "action" games tested were violent. And the games that would have similar effects are probably mostly violent games. You could probably create a non-violent games that increases the ability to see color contrast, but probably no one would want to play it.
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Playing video games and otherwise stressing your near vision can aggravate convergence insufficiency, which causes headaches, makes it hard to stay focused while reading, etc, and can be mistaken for ADD. In fact ADD and CI correlate strongly. You can have "perfect" vision and still have CI. I'm getting my eyes checked soon.
"invariably you are met with brutish impudence." Unlike, of course, any discussion with parent poster. He will argue with dignity, and... wait, what? "people talking about violent video games are reduced to chimpanzee-like sqwakings about their latest giblet fest, screaming from the tree tops of the ladder board, that they have defeated the betas, killed their children, and impregnated their women monkeys." Ah... so you're one of those... *backs away slowly from the troll*
I also propose that Simcity, Civilization, the game of Monopoly, and possibly the "Tycoon" series of sims are responsible for the lack of economic planningthat is rampant in our society. I mean, just look at the websites for these video games. Is there any kind of discourse on the harsh realities of capitalism or the far reaching effects of uneven taxation on the social framework of society? No.
Your argument is stupid.
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
After I pulled my foot out of your ass, your wife licked them clean and lo--behold the keys between my toes. Maybe you should consider flossing your ass once a week.
I see...
It's true, after a weekend of playing Doom III, I found myself very sensitive to the difference in color between RGB #000000 (background) and RGB #010101 (enemies).
Did someone hire Jack Thompson's nemesis to write this title or something? The point of the research was not to look at violence or violent games. It's about games that require players to quickly discern changing contrasts in visual elements.
Last I checked, that wasn't the definition of violence.
Sure, violent games happen to be a large subset of "games that require players to quickly discern changing contrasts in visual elements". But is that all there is in the set? Fuck no. I have a couple games on my computer right now that qualify for this and aren't violent at all. /rant
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
It's GIGO.
What's really funny is that you might be right.
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.