Windows 7 Gamers have good brains

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Shoot-em-ups can make fast decision makers


Boffins at the University of Rochester have worked out that first-person shooter players are better at making fast, accurate decisions based on evidence extracted from their surroundings. They have also discovered that when those who don't normally play action video games improved their inference skills after being forced to play just 50 hours.

The boffins have concluded that action video gamers better decision makers? The short answer appears to be yes. Writing in the popular science magazine Current Biology, which we get for the Spot the Brain Cell competition, the researchers said that they compared the skills of action gamers versus non-gamers by presenting both groups with simple decision-making experiments.

People appeared in the form of an array of dots and the volunteers had to discern the person's main direction of movement. They made this task easier and harder by adding to or taking away the number of dots moving in one direction. Gamers could identify direction both faster and more accurately than non-gamers.

Top boffin Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at Rochester said hat gamers needed experience with "shooter games, where you go through a maze and you don't know when a villain will appear. Strategy and role-playing games apparently won't work.

 

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This article discusses research conducted by scientists at the University of Rochester on the impact of action video games, specifically first-person shooter games, on decision-making skills. Here are the key points highlighted in the article: - Study Findings: - Players of first-person shooter games show an enhanced ability to make quick and accurate decisions based on information gathered from their environment. - Non-players who were exposed to playing action video games for just 50 hours also demonstrated improvements in their inference skills. - Research Method: - The study compared the decision-making abilities of action gamers and non-gamers through simple experiments that involved identifying the main direction of movement of figures presented as dots. - The difficulty of the task was manipulated by changing the number of dots moving in a specific direction. - Results: - Action gamers outperformed non-gamers in both speed and accuracy when identifying the direction of movement of the figures presented. - The experience gained from playing shooter games, characterized by uncertain and dynamic environments where rapid decisions are crucial, seemed to be the key factor in improving decision-making skills. - Expert Opinion: - Daphne Bavelier, a prominent researcher in brain and cognitive sciences at Rochester, emphasized that games involving maze navigation with unpredictable events (like villains appearing suddenly) are beneficial for enhancing decision-making abilities, rather than strategy or role-playing games. This research highlights the potential cognitive benefits associated with playing action video games, particularly in developing quick and accurate decision-making skills based on environmental cues.