A
team led by psychology professor Ian Spence at the University of Toronto reveals
that playing an action videogame, even for a relatively short time, causes
differences in brain activity and improvements in visual attention.
Previous studies have found differences in brain activity between
action videogame players and non-players, but these could have been attributed
to pre-existing differences in the brains of those predisposed to playing
videogames and those who avoid them. This is the first time research has
attributed these differences directly to playing video games.
Twenty-five subjects — who had not previously played
videogames — played a game for a total of 10 hours in one to two hour sessions.
Sixteen of the subjects played a first-person shooter game and, as a control,
nine subjects played a three-dimensional puzzle game.
Before and after playing the games, the subjects'
brain waves were recorded while they tried to detect a target object among
other distractions over a wide visual field. Subjects who played the shooter
videogame and also showed the greatest improvement on the visual attention task
showed significant changes in their brain waves. The remaining subjects —
including those who had played the puzzle game — did not.
"After playing the shooter game, the changes in
electrical activity were consistent with brain processes that enhance visual
attention and suppress distracting information," said Sijing Wu, a PhD
student in Spence's lab in U of T's Department of Psychology and lead author of
the study.
"Studies in different labs, including here at
the University of Toronto, have shown that action videogames can
improve selective visual attention, such as the ability to quickly detect and
identify a target in a cluttered background," said Spence. "But
nobody has previously demonstrated that there are differences in brain activity which are a
direct result of playing the videogame."
"Superior visual attention is crucial in many
important everyday activities," added Spence. "It's necessary for
things such as driving a car, monitoring changes on a computer display, or even
avoiding tripping while walking through a room with children's toys scattered
on the floor."
The research was supported by funding from the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada in the form of Discovery
Grants to Spence and co-author Claude Alain of the Rotman Research Institute,
Baycrest Centre and U of T's Psychology Department.
The research team also included U of T PhD candidate
Cho Kin Cheng, Jing Feng, a postdoc at the Rotman Research Institute, and
former undergraduate student Lisa D'Angelo.
More
information: The study will appear in the June 2012 issue
of theJournal of Cognitive Neuroscience, published by MIT Press. Early
access to uncorrected proofs of the article is available now at: http://www.mitpres … jocn_a_00192
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