Video Games Lead To Quick Thinking Skills

shmG writes "Parents who dismiss video games as mindless entertainment with no intrinsic value for their children may not have a leg to stand on anymore thanks to science. Cognitive scientists from the University of Rochester have proven action based video games train people to make quick, accurate decisions. These skills acquired from video games, which help players develop a heightened sensitivity to their surroundings, can be used in real world applications. This includes multitasking, driving, reading small print, keeping track of friends in a crowd, and navigating around town."

Comments

Video Games

[wbav]

Creating first post people everywhere

Re:Video Games

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Camper!!

hmmm

[nomadic]

I am utterly convinced that sitting in front of a computer as a pre-teen, staring at a computer for hours at a time trying to figure out how to get through infocom games has given me a huge mental payoff through my life.

Re:hmmm

[nschubach]

They did for me. Well, getting them to run on those PCs by tweaking autoexec.bat and config.sys files, conserving hard drive space and learning all about zip, then eventually running out of compatible games and having to write my own in good old QuickBasic (which I couldn't even imagine working in now...)

Of course, that was post TRS-80 days of cassette loading, 5.25 (if you were lucky) drives that were the size of a PC today and typing in BASIC programs from the back of a magazine.

Mental payoffs come in many forms though. I think the original story was talking about boosting your brains processes of quick recognition skills, reaction, and dexterity... I think I am (we are?) talking about knowledge and critical thinking skills where speed wasn't so much an option.

Re:hmmm

[znerk]

Except the study was about action games, and the improvement was in speed, not accuracy.

From the summary:

action based video games train people to make quick, accurate decisions.

Speed and accuracy.

I'll just assume you're not a gamer, shall I?

Re:hmmm

[hedwards]

They're asserting that action games help with both speed and accuracy. They're suggesting that it's based upon "probabilistic inference" basically a process similar to card counting in black jack.

The main problem with that is that you're only training the brain to deal with certain types of stimulus, primarily visual and auditory. It's definitely a real phenomenon, but I'm thinking that they're overstating it and I doubt very much that it extends much beyond a narrow range of tasks.

Yep

[Dyinobal]

I know grand theft auto helped me learn learned how to drive, and perhaps how to lose the cops.

Anecdotal Evidence

[decipher_saint]

I actually agree quite a lot with the summary, I'm legally blind, I have no depth perception and I had a lot of trouble tracking moving objects (like frisbees or baseballs). When started playing video games I started to notice that my reflexes were getting a little better the more I played. Soon I was able to catch a frisbee and throw it back. It was an amazing change for me.

I've also noticed that I have some innate ability to make intricate maps of everywhere I go. I never get lost (this is important as I can't read street signs without assistance). I'm not sure if playing video games where map memorization is key or what but I do seem to be better at it than many of my non-gamer friends.

Interesting stuff...

Re:Anecdotal Evidence

[war4peace]

Let me point out the difference:
By gaming, you passively train your brain to do "the same". You get some skill-ups by having fun. Others, who don't play games, can actively train their brains to do the same stuff, but they don't have that much fun in the process.
My girlfriend doesn't play PC Games. At all. She is bright but can't make sense of stuff I immediately understand. E.g. she hated the new phone I bought her; she had and still has problems configuring this and that; she manages to do so but takes her a lot more time than it takes me to do that. It may be a result of me playing puzzle games. Also, orientation in unknown environments (such as finding the route back to a hotel in a foreign city) is more difficult for her than is for me. It may be a result of me playing quite a few dumb FPS games with complex levels. You'd say probably my girlfriend is dumb. But I know she isn't. She lacks certain skills. And maybe if she played games, those skills would have been better.

Re:Anecdotal Evidence

[gknoy]

It's interesting, though. Do we like these kinds of games because we are innately gifted at such puzzle-solving, or did playing those games make us good at it? Did I like playing with Lego because I had (have?) good 3d-visualization skills and common engineering-sense, or did I develop that from playing with Lego?

I was astounded to see how much I've (unconsciously) learned by playing FPS games. I tried to introduce my father in law to COD4, and watching him puzzle out how to look around, move, and do both, was both fascinating and cringe-inducing. I guess it's what drivers feel when they like watch non-drivers learn.

It's true

[eln]

I once played Call of Duty for 72 hours straight. On my way to the 7-11 to get another case of Code Red I heard a loud bang right behind me. Instantly I spun around, dove to the ground, and emptied the clips on the two handguns I keep strapped to my sides at all times in order to fend off any crazy baseball-bat-wielding maniacs (I play a lot of Grand Theft Auto too). Anyway, it turns out it was just a school bus full of kids backfiring, but the incident gave me a lot of confidence in my ability to react quickly in any given situation. Shame about the kids, though.

Re:It's true

[nschubach]

Kids get a lot of hit points these days thanks to the sugars and fatty foods. They'll be fine. ;)

Re:Hum.

[MBCook]

The main thing to note (based on what I read of this study) is that it doesn't make you better at making decisions, it makes you faster (without loss of quality).

Basically, video games have the same effect as a job that forces you to make lots of decisions really fast. It just exercises the "make decisions" part of the brain, where as reading or watching TV or painting a wall probably doesn't.

Actually, I would expect this to almost be used as proof against violent games. After all, violent games make people violent (an accepted truth by those making these kinds of claims), and video games make you faster at making decisions (this study)... so ergo video games make people violently snap and kill people faster than normal people.

"You fell into a trap!"

[PolygamousRanchKid]

"You are damaged by the fall!"

I saw that while playing Rogue back in the early '80s. I'm still considering what I should do next.

Yeah, quick thinking, indeed . . .

Re:I quickly determined...

[Tiger4]

"other results of the study indicated subjects had a reduced attention span when comp... Squirrel!! ...ared to a control group."

Re:Hum.

[Rary]

The study shows that, immediately following an action gaming session, gamers were quicker to respond. However, it does not indicate whether this actually lasts. They could just be on an adrenaline rush (or something similar), which could wane eventually. It doesn't seem to indicate that they have actually been "trained" to make decisions more quickly.

It may be the case, but it isn't clear, at least not from the article.

Problems with Study

[Gastrobot]

This study seems presumptuous.

1) My wife, a statistician, gets irritated when studies say that they have proven things. When trying to draw conclusions from data you always run the risk that your data is not indicative of reality. You get around this with large sample sizes and by receiving data that points to the same trends on repeated studies. This study has a small sample size, 26 people total, and has no mention of repeated results.
2) The friendly article claims that the study has "proven" that action games train people to respond quickly and accurately. The article is overstepping the study in that the conclusion of the study was that people who play action games had the same level of accuracy as those who played The Sims II. The article should have said "quickly without losing accuracy".
3) The author of the study claimed that "People who play these action games make informed, better decisions than those who don't". The study only compared people playing two FPSs to people playing The Sims II. There is no mention of a control group that did not play any video game. The conclusion needs to be a bit more humble and only make statements between people who play FPSs and people who play ... whatever narrow genre The Sims II falls into.

I frequently enjoy Alien Swarm. I played Portal and my wife and I are slowly meandering our way through Uru. I used to be hooked on Starcraft, Myth II, Myth, Master of Orion II, and others. I believe that these games have shaped my neurological development and given me advantages in problem solving, strategy, coping with unexpected setbacks, and more. I also believe that they've cost me in self-discipline, my attention span, humanity (desensitization to violence and beyond that enjoyment of violence). My point is that I want the conclusions of this study to be true to give some legitimacy to what is otherwise an unproductive diversion but the study feels a little shoddy.

Is *quick* thinking really what we need?

[erice]

Fast, low complexity decisions is what machines do well. Is it really productive to train our brains to do what machines already do better? Would it not be better to train our brains to generate the deeper insight that, so far anyway, computers have been unable to provide?