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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."
Indeed, but so would any game thats fast paced, requires acute visual discrepancies, and something is at risk, or is rewarded for the ability.
But, in classic KDawson style... "Violent" games... may as well say "Stabbing people to death improves hand-eye coordination", when the articles starts with "Video games with lots of action, such as the shoot-'em-up variety, can improve your vision, a new study finds.
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.
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 ?
What do you consider a "nice monitor"? Some 19" LCD with horrible contrast ratio, or an 24" SGI branded CRT going at 180hz? What is your resolution? Too often people complain they have eye strain, then you realize they are trying to look at 1280x1024 on a 17" monitor.
Contrast sensitivity is pretty important. Ask any Vietnam vet. Ask any microbiologist. Ask anyone trying to play Doom 3...
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
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
According to other studies, violent games make people violent.
Why believe this study and not the others?
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.
The reason why FPS games help your contrast perception is rather simple. If you want to stay alive, you have to be able to see the guy moving around that is 3 shades of gray lighter than the dark corner he's hiding in. Because of the required reaction time to be successful (aka shooting him before he shoots you) the game trains you to closely watch for these contrast differences.
In a visual-based puzzle game like Bejeweled (or any of the zillion color-matching games out there) all the game pieces are already high contrast. You see a field of 5 or 6 different colored pieces, not thousands or millions of colors, like most modern FPS games provide. Hence, the game doesn't train you to look for the small contrast differences. Painting may provide some benefit, but painting is a much slower process than fragging some n00b who's coming around the corner with a rocket launcher. You have as much time as you want to figure out if one color is different than the other. Taking an extra few miliseconds deciding on your next brush stroke for your still life painting isn't going to result in a grenade being lodged in your sphincter.
You have a valid point, but spelling Windows as windoze makes people not take you seriously...
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Hey dude, you dropped this while helping that other guy. I thought you might still want it.
You spent a long time spell checking that post, didn't you?
You'll also have to have the player's avatar explode if they took a few extra milliseconds.
You have a valid point, but spelling Windows as windoze makes people not take you seriously...
Well, windows marketers certainly. Nobody else gives a shit.